By Way of Revolution is a series of works by Helina Metaferia that addresses the inherited histories of protest that inform contemporary social movements. In the project, Metaferia works intrinsically with female descendants of prominent historical black activists to produce video art; with women of color organizations to produce socially engaged work; with “radicalism” archives and performance stills to produce works on paper and tapestries; and with museum, gallery, and public spaces to produce participatory performances. Tapestry (Gewel) (2023) is one of a series of tapestries that are all subtitled with names of traditional storytellers from across the African continent.
By Way of Revolution is a series that addresses the inherited histories of protest that inform contemporary social movements. In the project Metaferia works intrinsically with female descendants of prominent historical black activists to produce video art; with women of color organizations to produce socially engaged work; with “radicalism” archives and performance stills to produce works on paper and tapestries; and with museum, gallery, and public spaces to produce participatory performances. Tapestry (Gewel) is one of a series of tapestries that are all subtitled with names of traditional storytellers from across the African continent.
By Way of Revolution is a series of works by Helina Metaferia that addresses the inherited histories of protest that inform contemporary social movements. In the project, Metaferia works intrinsically with female descendants of prominent historical black activists to produce video art; with women of color organizations to produce socially engaged work; with “radicalism” archives and performance stills to produce works on paper and tapestries; and with museum, gallery, and public spaces to produce participatory performances. The Call is an ongoing video project of performances by descendants of prominent civil rights activists across the United States.
A subject’s back stands before a landscape of mountains, arid and majestic, Der Wanderer 3 revisits the theme of man versus nature dear to Romantic painting and the paintings of Caspar David Friedrich in particular. “From him I returned to the theme of the character turning their backs to the viewer. I love the back.
By testing the limits of identification with the camera’s point of view, Delphi Falls cycles through multiple subjectivities. The film misuses more traditional narrative conventions -the suggestion of a story, the anchoring of actors as characters- to have the viewer constantly questioning who or what they are, and where they are located in the film’s world. Delphi Falls was included in the 2017 Whitney Biennial film program.
The Dragon is the Frame by Mary Helena Clark is an elegy that is somewhat paradoxically organized as a film noir or murder mystery, one that pays direct homage to Hitchcock’s Vertigo . But the parts don’t fit, and it is only in the eventual recognition of this faux raccord that Clark’s higher purpose becomes apparent. As we hear Bernard Herrmann’s score, we see the Golden Gate Bridge, Mission Dolores, and other Vertigo locations in the present day.
In the seminal video Workout , Kanis looks at the phenomenon of exercise in public space—specifically aerobics exercises in parks around Moscow today—as a broader lens for thinking about generational change. She leads a local group of participants through a work-shopped sequence of aerobics and marching. Each participant moves steadily and confidently in unison.
In Fading Fields 7 by Elena Damiani, the unstable transparency of the print on silk chiffon is relative to the light and the viewer’s position, varying continually as one moves around the work. As apparitions or ghosts, the images portrayed appear or vanish in the space as faded recollections of a distant landscape. These impressions appear as oscillatory surfaces that fluctuate between presence and absence; they are contingent objects that shift as a result of their environment.
Intersticio (Interstice) by Elena Damiani traces the topography of a non-specific site, an in-between zone. The video presents a panoramic view of two territories of a shifting and unresolved character, composed out of segmented events that visually intersect at a shared horizon point. Over the images, a fragmented and ambiguous poetic narration describes, by means of images found in digital archives, a hybrid site that permutes the representation of nature through its fusion of source material.
La Sombra (The Shadow) is a video of Regina Jose Galindo performing with a moving Leopard tank. The artist runs until exhaustion across a dirt field in what looks like a military site. Recorded for the camera, and projected on loop, the video performance was created for Documenta 14.
In 2012, former Guatemalan President José Efran Ros Montt was charged with genocide and crimes against humanity; Regina José Galindo’s video Tierra is a chilling reimagining of the atrocities recounted during his trial. Tierra depicts the artist standing naked in a lush field that a bulldozer has broken up. The video references an incident in which innocent Guatemalans were brutally murdered and buried in a mass grave.
Las Bambas by Elena Tejada-Herrera takes the name of a copper mine in the Andean department of Apurímac, Peru. The operations of this mining project were resisted by the local peasant communities, whose protests forced it to paralyze its operations. As of 2023, this is the most serious unresolved social conflict in the country.
Helina Metaferia is an interdisciplinary artist working across collage, assemblage, video, performance, and social engagement...
Mary Helena Clark is an artist working in film, video, and installation...
Elina Brotherus depicts, through her photographic work a portrait of the contemporary artist made during different artistic residencies...
Polina Kanis (b...
Elena Tejada-Herrera is a key figure at the intersection of feminist, performance, and technological art in Peru...
In the seminal video Workout , Kanis looks at the phenomenon of exercise in public space—specifically aerobics exercises in parks around Moscow today—as a broader lens for thinking about generational change...
Intersticio (Interstice) by Elena Damiani traces the topography of a non-specific site, an in-between zone...
In 2012, former Guatemalan President José Efran Ros Montt was charged with genocide and crimes against humanity; Regina José Galindo’s video Tierra is a chilling reimagining of the atrocities recounted during his trial...
The Dragon is the Frame by Mary Helena Clark is an elegy that is somewhat paradoxically organized as a film noir or murder mystery, one that pays direct homage to Hitchcock’s Vertigo ...
In Fading Fields 7 by Elena Damiani, the unstable transparency of the print on silk chiffon is relative to the light and the viewer’s position, varying continually as one moves around the work...
By testing the limits of identification with the camera’s point of view, Delphi Falls cycles through multiple subjectivities...
By Way of Revolution is a series of works by Helina Metaferia that addresses the inherited histories of protest that inform contemporary social movements...
Las Bambas by Elena Tejada-Herrera takes the name of a copper mine in the Andean department of Apurímac, Peru...
By Way of Revolution is a series of works by Helina Metaferia that addresses the inherited histories of protest that inform contemporary social movements...
By Way of Revolution is a series that addresses the inherited histories of protest that inform contemporary social movements...