COLLECTIVE MEMORY: NIAD ART CENTER

February 2019

Collective Memory: NIAD was a collaborative project with the NIAD Art Center. The exhibition incorporates a dynamic installation of melting ice sculptures alongside new work by NIAD artists Mireya Betances, Deatra Colbert, Evelyn Davis, Julio Del Rio, Karen May, Ann Meade, Jason Powell-Smith, Shantae Robinson, Joseph Rux and Nakeisha White.

For this exhibition project, I worked with NIAD artists to consider memories about local place, the city of Richmond, and the surrounding environment. During a creative workshop onsite, each artist shared a memory and created a corresponding color swatch to represent that experience. Some artists used that color to create a new artwork for this exhibition (in other cases, I selected artists’ recent work utilizing that same color). I then used these colors to create ten unique automatic paintings, made by melting ice live in the gallery – each of which respond directly to one NIAD artist’s work on the wall, hanging alongside their color swatch. The show also features a video and a map, highlighting places in Richmond where I sourced water to make the ice sculptures.

This project is part of my larger Collective Memory series, engaging with human storytelling, ice core science, and climate change in the Bay Area and various international polar communities.