- June 10, 2020 to July 3, 2020
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Limeflower Heterodoxy is an exhibition by artist Sharona Franklin featuring the slow decomposition of one of her signature gelatin sculptures. With this work, Franklin takes the viewer into an exploration of healing methodologies, contrasting the different approaches of psychedelic and plant based medicine intertwined within the pharmaco-industrial complex. The installation centers the experiences of childhood rural illness, contrasted with the alien and often dehumanizing experiences of cytotoxic and pharmaceutical systems. Referred to by the artist as bioshrines, the sculptures embody tensions and contradictions held for those whose treatments include both natural medicine and—sometimes ethically controversial—biopharmaceutical care. Decomposition is an integral part of Franklin’s process, as she invites visitors to come back and revisit her sculptures over the course of an exhibition, witnessing their transformation in space, as time and organic matter collide. For the first time, a livestream video grants the viewer real time access to the transformation at any moment of the day or night. The artist records the decomposition of her work, creating two time lapse videos over the period of a month. The livestream and videos (30 minute Hi8 timelapse and 60 minute high res video with textile edition) were offered by Printed Matter as artist editions with all proceeds to benefit COVID Bail Out NYC. This installation is organized by Printed Matter, Inc. (NYC), hosted at grunt gallery, and produced with the support of VIVO Media Arts Centre.
By Sharona Franklin
medium | 12 Programs
Medium Time Based- November 1, 2019 to December 14, 2019
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“How do you remember the past the most?”
Equal parts family recollection, historical research and spectral diary, Coco Means Ghost forms the moving image focal point of Gabi Dao’s new installation. Rooted in Dao’s research along the Mekong Delta and her own family’s history between cultures, a sentimental dissidence employs sculpture, video and sound to put imagined contemporary and historical diasporic voices in conversation. At the centre of the exhibition is a haunting: the eponymous narrator (a ghost in the form of a coconut) resists a singular place and time, moving freely, if not lightly, through personal photographs, contemporary commentary and archival material. Other characters appear– Lan, Ong Nam, Mr.Le, Quang, An, Nguyen and Dung–and together they tell the fragmented story of Ong Dao Dua ( ‘Mr.Coconut’), a monk who founded a small, self-sustaining, anti-war community in the late 1960s-70’s on Con Phung, an island colloquially known to westerners as the “Coconut Kingdom.” Through the lens of Ong Dao Dua’s oft-mythologized character, the work becomes an avenue to explore and enmesh broader notions of memory, nationhood, belief, belonging and dreams for the future.
Dao combines the single-channel video with sonically activated sculptures that transmit her family’s narrative in another form: excerpts from “Foreign Accent Improvement” cassettes used by the artist’s parents in the 1980s. a sentimental dissidence points to texture and poetics rather than conclusive fact, and creates a landscape that at once immerses, entangles and pushes back.
1. coco means ghost: Screen & Video, 25m24s, followed by a short pause. HD video, 2.1 sound, LED lights, cans of coconut water, photograph, bench & pillows.
2. you and i, i and you: Sculptures & Audio, 6m30s, followed by a short pause. Beaded curtains, UV reducing window vinyl, transducers, tempered glass, aluminum.
Accessibility: Hearing Access: Un-captioned English audio, some subtitled Vietnamese (written in English). Sight Access: Low light conditions
By Gabi Dao - Curated by Vanessa Kwan