Confluence
Film projection, glass tanks, water collected from Ganges and Jammuna rivers, found glass bottles; part of Towards Textiles: Material Fix at the John Michael Kohler Arts Center, Sheboygan, Wisconsin, 2021
Towards Textiles: Material Fix is a contemplation of fiber's unique material specificity and the ways a range of artists join the process with current theoretical and aesthetic concerns. The exhibition examines the manner in which the artists in Material Fix insist on the materiality of their work, questioning the detached sense of vision associated with this digital age, where appearances are often separate from real-life existence. The exhibition suggests that, in an age dominated by linear, cerebral, and linguistic analysis, it is more important than ever to reinforce awareness of humanity's shared physical experience.
For this exhibition, I created a space within the exhibition space. A multi sensory video installation is about ritual, specifically those associated with pilgrimage. Inspired by regular trips to India and Tibet, Confluence includes water from holy sites collected in hand-blown glass bottles and embroidered microscopic images of this same water. A video of people walking on their annual pilgrimage rotates around the room on three projectors at a pace that fosters an interconnected, meditative experience.
