Selva Aparicio
Selva Aparicio
“I presented this installation as my thesis during my MFA at Yale University,” Aparicio explains to My Modern Met. “Rugs are typically adorned with sacred gardens and oases, and can be moved around the home. This rug stayed put, quietly participating in years of familial abuse. This installation is about covering and exposing, trauma, and bearing witness.
Childhood Memories, 2017, hand carved rug into utility oak floor, (Total Installation 657 sq. ft.)
“My memories are permanently etched, so the soft fabric is represented in hand-carved scars on discarded wood flooring,” Aparicio continues. “I strive to find beauty in the peril and bear witness to the progression of ephemerality-permanence-loss.”
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JoAnne Lobotsky
The work is based on a fragment of an idea and then developed intuitively and organically during the process. My work is autobiographical in that I try to express the feeling I have of the time and place I grew up in. Things being reused and repurposed as well as things being jerry-rigged were typical on a small mid-century farm. Imperfection, abjectness and roughness coinciding with beauty and a kind of humble elegance are my main goals. I use mostly scraps of fabric that have a history of use by other people and there is sometimes damage from wear or stains that I embrace. Other types of materials are used that suggest fur, bark or vegetation. I feel that my approach to this work which involves imperfection and roughness is also in some way a rebellion against our class system and economic entitlement and strives to become accepted on its own terms within its own limitations. My work has roots in the Arte Povera movement in the commonplace and worn materials I use which present a challenge to established notions of value and propriety.
What Remains, 2019, Canvas, acrylic, fabric, thread, wood, feather, bleach, paper, clothes pin, antique nails on canvas, 23 X 34.5"
Where I'm From, 2019, Canvas, fabric, embroidery, cheesecloth, micaceous iron oxide, feathers, faux fur, tatting, antique buttons. Some areas are lightly stuffed. 23 X 58 X .5"
Song Dong
Song Dong, Same Bed Different Dreams No. 3, 2018.
Song Dong’s art confronts notions of memory, impermanence, waste, consumerism and the urban environment. Simultaneously poetic and political, personal and global, his work explores the intricate connection between life and art.
Same Bed Different Dreams No. 3 (2018) has been created using everyday household objects, such as crockery, pendant lights and decorative knick-knacks. These mundane objects are presented on a double bed carrying the memory of the rise of his generation, behind a polished case composed of salvaged window panels, the useless byproduct of modernization. Though each window has been carefully enhanced by Song Dong with vibrantly coloured mirror or glass, their recycled nature is nevertheless evident from the still flaking paint and rusting latches. These collaged remnants of people’s homes carry with them the history of a city and the lives of its people. As viewers are invited to peek inside, they are transformed into voyeurs: imagining their homes, their stories and perhaps identifying shared experiences, and primed to think of the future.
Song Dong has continued his investigations of the varied cultural meanings of windows. As barriers between living spaces and the wider world, windows offer key perspective through which people view the outside environment. In the process of being opened or closed, windows can alter the relationships between individuals and the external world. Through changes in color and form, they can transform the world’s appearance in the eyes of the viewer. Song Dong’s work builds on the rhetorical and aesthetic significance that has been associated with windows since ancient times.
Song Dong, Usefulness of Uselessness - Compressed Window No. 03, 2020-2021.
Rochestown Road in Rochestown, Co Cork.
The estate was originally designed by BOC Architects and built in 2008. The four homes are currently on the market for €1.24 million, 16 years after they were originally meant to be sold.
The properties have no internal work completed at all. This means, once you go inside, they are nothing more than the skeleton of the house. There are no electrical fittings, no running water and all windows are completely bordered up - some with wooden boards, others with metal.
thoughts on memory
louise bourgeois / aftersun (2022) / joan didion / phoebe bridgers / carmen maria machado / st vincent / lisa ko
Katie Prock
While Katie explores photography in a variety of mediums, her work captures the essence of intimacy and memory. She often uses found imagery that she manipulates through cutting, sewing, and creating objects. Her series Yesterday We Were Girls explores the way images can represent the ways we change, and stay the same, over time.
EK: What relationship does memory or intimacy play within your practice, and does photography become a way to navigate these complex topics? KP: The photographs in this series are all filtered through memory. Either they are from the past and hold actual memory or they are my own interpretation of those past events. I have a strong memory and in some ways that’s really useful. However, I think that having a strong memory means it’s easy for me to get stuck in the past, especially the painful parts. With this work I tried to remember but not get stuck. I rewrote and reinterpreted painful memories from a new and healthier perspective. Through image making and writing, I’ve honored my history, both pleasant and painful, and imagined a future that isn’t dictated by my past.
traditions, expectations and other circular things
Ghost Buildings
"It’s short of a shared tone of memory that’s left like breath on a mirror."
Lyon, France
Newcastle Upon Tyne, England
Claire Healy & Sean Cordeiro - Not Under my Roof
Not Under My Roof, 2009, Framed Photograph, 100.5 x 106.5 cm; 82.5 x 88.2cm.
Floor of entire farmhouse from Millmerran Queensland, wood, linoleum, 11 x 12 meters,
Therman Statom
Blue House, 2013.
Dos Sistemas, 2011.
Independence, 2024.
Ireland 2023 “I believe art can be understood both conceptually and intuitively. I think there is a need for the general public to come to an understanding that to appreciate art and creativity they must trust his or her self; that extensive education is not a prerequisite for understanding art. Much of what I do is seeded in what is more of an intuitive process; a large portion of my work is exploring these processes within people and their environments. The fact is, I believe that creativity is a part of all aspects of what people do; my studio and educational efforts via workshops and the support of outside programming, general educational and cultural institutions, are a reflection of this belief. I feel that art is tool for empowerment and education. It’s also a viable tool to investigate positive change and engage a culture through the use of exploration. ”
Alexa Meyerman
10:25 AM, inkjet : transparency film, 15 x 20 x 15 cm, 2010
This work is based on architectural deconstructions. Like in memories or dreams, every part is reconstructed, leaving an impression of unplanned reality. In some of the work there may be traces of human presence, but they are all empty, or temporarily abandoned. Anything could happen, but nothing does, besides the soundless shifting of elements in a bare, changing and undefined volume. In this way architecture transforms into anarchy of space. You can wander -not hide- in these idle constructions which, in the end, only consist of a rhythm between light and darkness.
11:25 AM, inkjet : transparency film, 29 x 21 x 15 cm, 2011 The transparent photo-objects can be seen as deconstructions. In spite of traces of human presense, what these models have in common is that they are either empty or temporarily abandoned. Like in memories or dreams, the buildings are reconstructed, some details have been emphasised others are dissolving or dissolved. The concepts of interior and exterior become interchangeable. One can look in and around the objects, and then they will transform, depending on the incidence of light or point of view, which results in the appearance, or disappearance of exits, entrances or rooms. Unavoidably you have to approach the buildings closely, but you cannot hide in these idle constructions, which after all in the end, only consist of light and darkness.
