Amy Karle’s work as American Arts Incubator exchange artist to Poland considers the "Layers of Life" and how we form —biologically/socially/emotionally/spiritually — on all levels, while questioning, “What is life in and through the bio-tech era?” Karle wanted to transcend these layers — from the micro to the macro, from the individual to the social, from the internal to the external, from the depths of the earth to the sky, space, and beyond. She conducted artistic research in the labs at Copernicus Science Centre and in two UNESCO heritage sites, the Wieliczka and Bochnia Royal Salt Mines. She did research in one of the deepest parts of the earth accessible to humans in Bochnia, and studied crystallization, salt and concepts of space at Copernicus. Karle researched how nature forms and grows: in this case the natural additive manufacturing (natural 3D printing) of salt and crystallization. She also considered salt as a vital, life-sustaining element in our bodies and of our earth, and learned about theories surrounding the origins of life concerning salt. Combining her research, influences, and inspiration, she created performance art, sculptures, and a show for the Heavens of Copernicus Planetarium in collaboration with Copernicus Biolab and Planetarium team, as well as Grain Films.
Recently the Dnipro river has been experiencing high levels of pollution through harmful algal blooms, a widespread phenomenon caused by toxic industrial runoff and global climate change. The river has transformed from something once abundant with life, to being covered in a layer of algae that can suffocate the lives of other species. I wanted to explore material transformation through the lens of the Dnipro, and have created intimate portraits of the river in acrylic, transferring it's boundaries to become a central focus to address this topic, layering and juxtaposing man-made tributaries with ancient and natural flows. Creating a water battery with polluted water from the Dnipro with speculative algal bioreactors, I consider converting cyanobacteria and polluted water in the Dnipro into energy; in this case, for illumination. A re-framing of the river helps us to reconsider our impact on it and future methods of harmonious collaboration with it, other ecologies and non-human species.
ARUA.xyz is an augmented reality map containing digital sculptural works by multiple Ukrainian artists featured in this exhibition, as well as an online browser-based project. It is an intervention of space, a re-writing of present geographies, a disruption of physical and digital borders, and a intentional positioning of new cultural digital monuments throughout Ukraine. For this exhibition, these sculptures can be seen in the gallery, but they can also been seen at the different locations where there are highlighted on the map when visiting those locations through a smart phone. ARUA.XYZ will live beyond this exhibition to include additional works by other artists from Ukraine who are interested in this digital intervention of space within and surrounding the boundaries of Ukraine.
The project is a immersive curatorial project for expanding the participant projects in the space of L'Uzine and for proposing strategies for l'Uzine to continue to function as a scaffolding or incubator for art-and-technology-based community enterprise in Casablanca. It considers l'Uzine's building through a series of formal reinterpretations, alternately as a puzzle, a ribbon, a klein bottle, and a collection of nodes for sensory projects that express the diversity, knowledge, and expertise of the many populations of Casablanca.
Additionally, it proposes smaller-scale artistic interventions - low and high-tech that can serve as either independent or systematic links among spaces and/or exhibits.
Narrowcasting is a project inspired by the 2018 Womxn’s March in Seattle, Washington and named after the news sharing practices of the early years of Sangham Community Radio in Andhra Pradesh. In the early methods of this female run community radio, women recorded the stories of their neighbors on cassette tapes and spread this information by playing the audio in different villages. Working toward a more diverse conversation in the global movement toward gender equality, I used garments created by Seamstress, a Kochi based company owned by Rasmi Poduval, to infuse networked mobile amplification devices to project
the stories of voices from gender minorities. The intention of these garments is to provide a platform for people in a position of privilege to use their bodies to amplify underrepresented narratives and to have an active uniform to be used in performance and protest. Local female and transgender activists were interviewed at Pepper House, in Fort Kochi, and this audio was woven together to create the content projected in this work.
Beatrice Glow’s project was inspired by “Doña Mary,” an Afro-Ecuadorian grandmother who worked as a chef at the program’s host partner organization. She noticed that the feminine labor of Doña Mary, the woman who took care of their wellbeing, was often invisibilized. To Glow, Mary represented not only the strength of pachamama (Mother Earth), but also the core lessons of resilience and survivorship that initially drew her to work within the context of Casa de Artes Yarina and Museo Viviente Otavalango’s past as the Antigua Fábrica San Pedro, a site of indigenous exploitation between the 1850s through 1970s. In local marketplaces, Glow noticed that cornsilk, a potent herb to heal urinary tract and kidney infections, was tossed as trash. Thus, her counterpart Ana Cachimuel and Mary helped procure cornsilk from market vendors as Glow braided them to frame a drawing of Mary adorned in medicinal plants she uses to heal people. The drawing was then activated with a video interview paired as an augmented reality feature.
