19 October – 2 December 2012
UKS

EXHIBITION
NOTHING IS FORGOTTEN, SOME THINGS CONSIDERED

Liz Glynn, William E. Jones, Christine Rebet, Emily Roysdon, Jumana Manna and Wu Tsang with Nana Oforiatta-Ayim
curated by Shoghig Halajian and Suzy M. Halajian

Nothing is forgotten, some things considered explores the politics of image-making and its impact on individual and collective identity. At a moment when the dominance of neoliberalism and its attending crisis questions the smooth image of corporate capitalism, the exhibition brings together artists who challenge dominant modes of representation within historical and political discourses. It investigates the multifarious sites of power that construct identity, ranging from national archives to media coverage of protest, and consequently presents a generative tension between ideology and experience.

Acknowledging that history is representational and the images that constitute it mediated, the exhibited artists investigate identity-forming narratives within culture. Across their use of video, sculpture and performance, they explore a broad spectrum of issues, including the Farm Security Administration archives of American society during the Great Depression and the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Hellenistic antique collection, to problematize the objectivity of visual and canonized information. The artists reconfigure, decontextualize or abstract key elements within these sites in order to disclose gaps in narratives and open up space for improvisation, misreadings, and awkward tension. The project explores the paradoxes inherent in producing identity and the critical potential of images. It reconsiders the status of the subject by re-aligning the visual with physical lived experience. In doing so, it emphasizes the significance of claiming space – both the poetic and the actual – and looks for alternative ways of inhabiting public and political sites. The body within environments of collectivity takes priority, underscoring the significance of how one feels in the world and how one can feel in the world.

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