Loading

Citizen : Artist "Citizen artists do not possess a particular nationality; citizen artists are aware of our interconnectedness as people and our shared responsibility to do good. Citizen artists recognize that their work in the studio and the classroom is not separate from the culture we live in, the politics we negotiate, and the society we build together." —SAIC President Elissa Tenny

SAIC ALUMNI SHOWCASE at EXPO CHICAGO, APRIL 7-10, 2022

EXHIBITING ARTISTS: (Online)-Barbara Karant, Maximiliano Cervantes, Yuge Zhou, Anavi Bhushan Nugyal & Meha Ray, Killian Dunne & Désirée Coral. (Expo Booth)- Alayna N. Pernell, Jennifer Teresa Villanueva, Kari Laine, Wuchao Feng, Rong Bao & Carolina Pereira.

ARTISTS SHOWCASE:

Barbara Karant

820 Ebony Jet documents the core essence of the Johnson Publishing Company, the most influential African American–owned corporation of its day, focusing on the company’s historic building in its semi-skeletal state—before the last vestiges of the original workspace vanished. These lively interiors fostered the creativity of a staff working in a variety of media, including the iconic Ebony and Jet magazines. Even with that staff now long gone, the Johnson Building still embodied the spirit of this company, which occupied this space essentially unaltered from 1972 to 2012. It remained a genuine cultural time capsule of African American enterprise: a specific stylistic vocabulary that had survived the passage of the decades. The Johnson Building, stripped of its furnishings, presented a unique opportunity: to document the resonant interiors of its long-time occupant—interiors that simultaneously represented the spirit of this landmark company and the sense of its loss, of a seminal moment in African American history and the history of this nation.

"Every floor is different, and every floor has surprises.” --John H. Johnson, former CEO Johnson Publishing Company.
Barbara Karant, 820 Ebony/Jet; Floor 10 #5, Floor 7#6, Floor 10 #9, Floor 9#3, 2013-2022, Archival Inkjet.
Barbara Karant, 820 Ebony/Jet; Floor 10 #5, Floor 7#6, Floor 10 #9, Floor 9#3, 2013-2022, Archival Inkjet.
Barbara Karant, 820 Ebony/Jet; Floor 10 #5, Floor 7#6, Floor 10 #9, Floor 9#3, 2013-2022, Archival Inkjet.
Barbara Karant, 820 Ebony/Jet; Floor 10 #5, Floor 7#6, Floor 10 #9, Floor 9#3, 2013-2022, Archival Inkjet.

_________________________________

Maximilliano Cervantes

La Frontera, the frontier, or the Mexican-American Borderlands in The Rio Grande Valley, Texas, is my cage. My photographic practice shows my relationship with my father and our relationship to labor to confront the border myth constructed by the media and Elon Musk's Twitter account. Engaging with my father's occupation as a blue-collar worker at United Launch Alliance and our presence in the borderlands has brought me to consider the future of brown labor on Mars and the violent colonial history of South Texas. The advanced technology in my brown community and our labor experience influences my materials. My constructed grids speak to computational photography used by the Mars Rover and military GPS. During long exposures, our bodies sync, and we demonstrate How-To: Cross the Colonial Landscape of Mars, How-To: Maintain SpaceX's Mars Base, How-To: Exploit Mexican Men and outline the borders that trap us.

How-To: Travel The Colonial Landscape of Mars 2022. Dad lifting me after falling in front of an image taken by the Mars Curiosity Rover. United Launch Alliance, the company he works for, launched the rover.
How-To: Maintain SpaceX’s Mars Base 2030. Someone has to mop the floors on Mars. There is no correct answer.
How-To: Outline the Two Borders Surrounding South Texas 2021. Google Maps grid screenshot south of the South Texas checkpoint, north of the U.S.-Mexico Border. Both encapsulate the people who live in the Rio Grande Valley, Texas.
How-To: Exploit Mexican Men in 4 Steps: 1. Start Bracero Program 2.Pay Them 30 Cents an Hour to Clear The Land of Mesquite Trees 3.Create Strict Immigration Laws 4.Invest $49.7 Billion in Border Security 2022. Dad as my Bracero Abuelo Manuel Morin, in front on infrared mesquite forest captured by border surveillance camera FLIR Ranger.

_________________________________

Yuge Zhou

Trampoline Color Exercise, 2022, Video, (infinite loop); This is a collage of Olympic gymnasts whose uniforms change color throughout the video, as well as their identities. The video shows the athletes striving for perfection and the birds-eye view foregrounds the celebration of human form and rhythm, which supersedes national pride and individualism.

_________________________________

Anavi Bhushan Nugyal & Meha Ray

Whereas, we have a contract that is kept between all, beyond the simple existence of just me and you, for the well-being of everyone. This is the fabric of society.

This piece represents the voices of social leaders and individuals, both as representations of society. The articles presented are influenced by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights published by the United Nations. The amendments added are shared opinions of members of our society, influenced by their daily experiences and ways they feel bound to a social contract. The piece physically distorts the text as a representation of muddling and blurring of individual voices when considering a society at large.

The implicit nature of the social contract and the ways it is woven into everyday life necessitates its constant modification to keep with our developing societies. Hence, we have included a space for you to share your opinion and another to read in full the contents of this ongoing document. This piece amasses existing contractual elements in order to question their relevance in today’s society. The document was signed as “लोग क्या कहेंगे?” directly translated to “What will people say?”- a concept that plagues most individuals in their everyday lives. Small reflections of you are embedded in the piece to echo the importance of individual voices, so what will you, the people, say?

Read full text here.Anavi Bhushan Nugyal & Meha Ray “लोग क्या कहेंगे?” (log kya kahenge?), 2022, Linen, Cotton Thread, Mirrored Glass, Wood, 4x8 feet.

_________________________________

Killian Dunne & Désirée Coral

Between September 2020 and July 2021, the COVID pandemic and the implementation of Brexit left married SAIC Alumni Désirée Coral and Killian Dunne stuck in two different countries: Coral, with the couple’s 3-year-old son in Ecuador, and Dunne in Scotland. The work’s title “Concurrently Simultaneously” references 2 of the 733 words spoken by the character Lucky in Samuel Beckett’s “Waiting for Godot”. Within the non-space of the play’s set where time is confused, undefinable, and distorted, Lucky felt that he was trapped in a net. Within this wall print installation each artist documents and responds to their time spent apart in lock-down. Within “Concurrently Simultaneously” both artists explore the COVID lock-down net as a page grid system. Pages and narratives have no linear progression. Moments trapped in time are documented in one installation space as a blur of memories experienced within the physical and digital net.

Killian Dunne & Désirée Coral, Concurrently Simultaneously, 2021, digital print on paper.
Killian Dunne & Désirée Coral, Concurrently Simultaneously, 2021, digital print on paper.
Killian Dunne & Désirée Coral, Concurrently Simultaneously, 2021, digital print on paper.
Killian Dunne & Désirée Coral, Concurrently Simultaneously, 2021, digital print on paper.
Killian Dunne & Désirée Coral, Concurrently Simultaneously, 2021, digital print on paper.
Killian Dunne & Désirée Coral, Concurrently Simultaneously, 2021, digital print on paper.
Killian Dunne & Désirée Coral, Concurrently Simultaneously, 2021, digital print on paper.
Killian Dunne & Désirée Coral, Concurrently Simultaneously, 2021, digital print on paper.
Killian Dunne & Désirée Coral, Concurrently Simultaneously, 2021, digital print on paper.
Killian Dunne & Désirée Coral, Concurrently Simultaneously, 2021, digital print on paper.
Image by Centro de Artes Contemporáneas de Quitocourtesy, courtesy, Dunne Killian, "Concurrently simultaneously_2" 2021

_________________________________

Wuchao Feng

Dilution Performance, 04:08, 2020; Originating from a port city in southern China, with water and salt key elements of my identity, this performance is based on a reversed process of salt farming, as the artist’s identity dilutes into a broader body of water through relocation overseas. From the red marker in the center, the pile of salt is gradually dispersed, forming fluid traces of identity, and ending in differing concentrations across many endpoints. Therefore, my fluid identity does not necessarily belong to any specific place or category but differs in a higher or lower concentration.

_________________________________

I appropriate and re-contextualize past photographic works as an act of care

- Alayna Pernell

"My practice considers the gravity of the mental well being of Black people in relation to the spaces we inhabit. Using photography, text, found materials, and sound, I examine the harsh realities and complexities of being a Black American. Bringing attention to important matters, both past and present, is an active part of my practice and encapsulates what it means to be a citizen artist. In my work, Our Mothers’ Gardens (2020-current), I am researching and uncovering repressed images of Black women held in photographic collections at the Art Institute of Chicago. The images I have found and researched thus far depict the exploitation and violence towards Black women. I appropriate and re-contextualize past photographic works as an act of care. My goal with this work is for the issue around institutions holding and silencing collections of visible and (in)visible violent depictions of Black women to be further highlighted and corrected."

Alayna Pernell, With Care to Ms. Maudelle Bass Weston, 2020, Archival Inkjet Print, 10 x 10in.
Alayna Pernell, With Care to You (2), 2020, Archival inkjet print, 10 x10in.
Alayna Pernell, With Care to Ms. Maudelle Bass Weston, 2020, Archival inkjet print, 10 x10in.

_________________________________

Jennifer Villanueva

As a child of Mexican immigrant parents—both factory workers—my sense of home and identity has always been in flux. My grandmother, who was the first to migrate to the United States, influenced my parents to stay in Chicago when they found out my mother was pregnant with me. They knew that if I were born in the U.S., it meant that I would have the opportunity to have more options, academically and financially, than they ever did in México. This decision made by thousands of immigrants speaks to desire, opportunity, and the daily struggle to dream and survive. My photographic work includes research, writing, and photographs documenting the everyday lived experiences of my family’s migration and labor in the U.S. Additionally, it focuses on my grandmother’s recovery from hospitalizations and journey of living with dialysis due to Chronic Kidney Disease. My photographic work consists of environmental portraits and still lives filled with color and dramatic ambient lighting emphasizing culture, tradition, and class. Each gesture and composition symbolizes a narrative about the process of obtaining legal status, transnational identity, and belonging in the U.S.

Jennifer Villanueva, Un Domingo Sunday Brunch, 2018, Inkjet Print, 120 Film, 24"x"36"in.
Jennifer Villanueva, Dos poderosas matriarcas, 2021,Inkjet Print, 120 Film, 40"x40"in.
Jennifer Villanueva, Votamos en honor a nuestra mamá y papá, 2020,Inkjet Print, 120 film, 24"x36"in.

This is our Sunday Brunch. As a Mexican-American photographer, I feel it is important to illustrate the cultural and significant material of Mexican-Americans' everyday life in the Midwest and the United States. During my photographic process, I think of our family responsibilities and what keeps the family closer together. Well, what keeps us together is our weekends. Each Sunday morning, my dad and uncle love to bring carnitas, barbacoa, and Menudo for "brunch". We all get together, the 10 of us (usually 1 extra person stays with us, in this photograph it is my aunt's mother visiting from Mexico in the red behind my grandmother), to eat in our tiny cramped kitchen.

Two powerful matriarchs. My paternal grandmother and mother preparing for dinner together.

We voted in honor of our mom and dad. It is disheartening that our parents cannot vote in the country they lived in for 23 years considering all the labor and sacrifices they have made on this American soil. One of the many things that devastate me is how immigrants indeed carry this country on their backs, and how much they historically, economically, and socially contribute to the U.S.

_________________________________

Kari Laine McCluskey

The Rewilding project began with a desire to expand the social conversation about climate change by re-work the sacred–arcane Tarot as a storytelling aid to decolonize our imagination and recognize nature's ancient and complex relationship to humans. A mosaic of figures and objects representing our deep entanglements with animals, plants, minerals, organic matter, land uses, and trash. The photographs are made using wet plate collodion negatives—a fittingly slow process to contrast the speed of climate change. I hope this work inspires others to be stewards to the earth and shepherd all life to the next century and beyond.

Kari Laine McCluskey, How Best to Live and Die within the Threads, 2021, Pigment prints from collodion negatives.

_________________________________

Rong Bao & Carolina Pereira

One morning, I was walking down the road and saw a pile of melted ice cream running wildly through the crowd. Everyone walking down the street was wearing a mask, carefully trying to strike a balance between avoiding the virus and going out normally. As a civic artist living in a crowded big city, I like to accumulate serendipitous moments in society. I immediately recorded it on my phone as if I had experienced the great adventure myself. In collaboration with another SAIC alumnus, Carolin Pereira, we turned this fleeting ice cream into a permanent soft sculpture, trying to preserve forever the desire for freedom and the adventure of an unknown life through exaggerated shapes and sizes and bright colors. Hopefully, in the midst of a pandemic, people will still remember the desire and expectation of a normal and free life.

Rong Bao & Carolina Pereira, Run For Ice Cream, 2020-2021, Clay, Wool, Yarn Sculpture, 130x110x140cm. Watch Run for Ice Cream here.

_________________________________

Curated by:

Jane Grossman, Benita Nnachortam, Sarah Pendley, Reilly Ribeiro, Jiani Zhu

THANK YOU FOR VISITING

Contact: exposaic2022@gmail.com

Credits:

Cover Image by Feng Wuchao.