As an extension of Target Gallery the Torpedo Factory Art Center is hosting the pop-up video exhibition, Through These Eyes, in Studio 9 of the Art Center during the summer of 2022. This exhibition features a series of videos that focuses on perspectives of underrepresented identities, including BIPOC identity, LGBTQ+ identity, and physical or mental disabilities in the form of film shorts, documentaries, and animations.
This exhibition will feature a series of videos projected, playing one-at-a-time on a loop in Studio 9 of the Torpedo Factory Art Center. The work will be viewable all together on our online digital catalog which will be available on our website.
ABOUT THE JUROR
Naoko Wowsugi (she/her) an DC-based artist of Korean-Japanese descent, who works with photography, video, and performance as forms of communication. Using interdisciplinary practices of visual art, local research, and community participation, Wowsugi’s projects highlight and fortify everyday communal and interpersonal identities. Wowsugi received an MFA from Virginia Commonwealth University and a BFA from both the Kansas City Art Institute and Osaka University of Arts in Japan. She is currently a professor at American University in Washington DC.
Michael Covello and Elizabeth Schneider (Virginville, PA), Disappearing Pathways, 12 min. 41 sec., 2020.
“Michael Covello and Elizabeth Schneider are a collaborative duo of fine art animators working transdisciplinary across the arts, film, writing, and audio art. Our narratives interweave concepts about art, architecture, psychology, ecology, and environmental science. The narratives in our animations are highly influenced by natural settings and how humans relate to them both symbolically and literally, through the lens of the Anthropocene.
In Disappearing Pathways, the narrative follows a man suffering from auditory hallucinations tied to the natural world. The presentation of nature in this work reflects the Anthropocene-era concept of nature as an active (often aggressive) player on the world stage. And a humble, dare we say intimate, component of nature - the ‘weed’ - became an interesting tool to examine the individual in society. When does a ‘human’ become a weed? In relation to mental health, when does a thought become a weed in one’s mind?”
- Michael Covello and Elizabeth Schneider
Angelica Verdan (Lorton, VA), To Be Fully Seen, 2 min. 24 sec., 2022.
“To Be Fully Seen is an introspective self-portrait that grapples with identity online and in real life. Video games and online communities were a source of comfort that eventually became pure escapism. As my escapism grew, I found it harder and harder to separate my two selves.
When my worlds started to collide, it forced me to ask questions. Where exactly did ‘Angelica’ end? Where does ‘Lynn#1536’ begin? Can I trust others with my Filipino American identity and other parts of myself? Do others see what I want them to see? Pixels can only hide so much — we leave traces of ourselves everywhere. To Be Fully Seen explores this constant balancing act through the frame of a smartphone. I invite the viewer to reflect on their own identities and define, or redefine, who they are in all spaces.”
- Angelica Verdan
Kate Stone (Brooklyn, NY), Strange Loops (A Gathering Storm in Four Dimensions), 3 min. 28 sec., 2020.
“Strange Loops takes place in a deserted architectural structure as it is slowly overtaken by natural and invisible forces. Curtains and debris dance in gusts of wind, an apocalyptic storm hovers over a dinner table, vegetation threatens to take over. Each scene focuses on a corner of a room, situated like a mathematical axis with symbolic domestic objects arranged like points on a graph. The rooms unfold as one leads to the next, gradually revealing a floorplan with no entrance or exit. Upon returning to a particular room, it has changed, shifted, or slipped in time. Objects have moved or vanished completely and been replaced. The light is different. Here, movement through space and movement through time are directly, but disproportionately linked. The rooms pulse between dimensions and transform according to cycles of destruction and renewal.”
- Kate Stone
Willow Machado (Quincy, Mass.), Just Leave It, 4 min. 26 sec., 2022.
“Just Leave It is an experimental study of mood and sound. The film is a cohesion of my fine art interests and animation. It features multidisciplinary techniques including live-action animation, rotoscoping, replacement animation, and cyanotype print making. Self-portraits are an important part of my practice. Thus, I was inspired to create this film as a reflection on my identity as a trans artist.”
- Willow Machado
Kiana Honarmand (Mountain View, CA), As I Lay Longing, 6 min. 42 sec., 2021.
“As I Lay Longing is a durational performance that explores the topic of longing and immigration through the lens of daily acts that become rituals by way of repetition and their multisensory nature.
In this performance, I am counting the days since I left my home country and loved ones using grains of rice. Rice is a big part of the culture of Iran, as well as most of continental Asia and the SWANA region. I recall my childhood memories of cleaning rice as a routine chore representing aspects of womanhood and Persian culture. This piece investigates the process of learning to deal with the constant state of waiting in uncertainty through daily acts and rituals.”
- Kiana Honarmand
Dawn Nye (Farmington, Maine), Joe Sennott and the Immaculate Heart of Mary, 15 min. 26 sec., 2020.
“This film uses animation, still images and video to tell the story of Joseph Sennott, a photographer who grew up in a strict separatist Catholic community in western Massachusetts, and died of aids in the early 90’s.
It pays homage to him as an individual, but also to the way that he used his photography to make peace with his religious upbringing and his identity as a gay man. Blear Moon ‘Recalling’ Voice: Interview with Mary Sennott.”
- Dawn Nye
Megan Christiansen (New York, NY), B-words, 12 min. 31 sec., 2021.
“B-words uses reproduction as a form of critique, engaging with the possibility of transforming these representations. It seeks to provide an opportunity to consider the racialized, gendered, and hierarchical use of language through an exploration of the constantly contested word “bitch.”
The work is organized around a central provocation extracted from the 2007 deposition of basketball player Isiah Thomas during a sexual harassment case brought against him by a former colleague, Anucha Browne Sanders.”
- Megan Christiansen
Nancy Wyllie (N Kingstown, RI), Getting Under Our Skin, 18 min., 2021.
“Through archival materials and candid one on one interviews, the persistence of skin color bias is laid bare. The global skin bleaching epidemic has reached unprecedented levels.
'Getting Under Our Skin' takes the viewer through the science, nature, history, and culture of color dating back to Ancient Egypt, and asks us to reconsider our perception of color and race as a means of coming to terms with centuries of misinformation and racial strife.”
- Nancy Wyllie
Jessica Valoris (Washington, DC), Ode to Zipporah, 5 min. 55 sec., 2021.
“This ritual performance honors the legacies of collective care and resistance that Black women practice in the face of racialized oppression.”
- Jessica Valoris
ABOUT THE TARGET GALLERY
Target Gallery is the contemporary exhibition space of Torpedo Factory Art Center, managed by the City of Alexandria's Office of the Arts, a division of the Department of Recreation, Parks and Cultural Activities.