Displacement presents two life-size sculptures exploring the geography and absurdity of the human-built environment, and invites the viewer into a turnabout of infrastructure, borders, and notions of space. Dark and foreboding, built of gun-metal grey steel with occasional spurts of bright yellow, Turnstile, is a cacophony of geometric patterns, moving parts, and cast shadows. Inspired by the artist’s experience of traversing the border between Israel and Palestine, and referencing the arbitrary nature of contested political borders, this sculpture can be broken down and reassembled in a different formation in different places. Examining the juxtaposition of abstract ideas such as freedom, borders, and dehumanization, and their tangible manifestations on the individual, Turnstile functions both as a sculpture but also as a working crowd control device, and expects the audience to physically interact with these ideas and to feel for a moment the transformative effect of this liminal space between liberty and restraint. An explosion of cobalt blue abutments, trusses, bracing, and girders, cantilevered from the gallery wall, Collapse, delves into the myths and desires of a very different landscape: Winnipeg, Canada. Inspired by the rusty and dowdy Arlington Bridge built in 1912 that now serves primarily as an overpass for Canadian Pacific Railway trains in Winnipeg, Collapse is a de-construction of this functional structure. The bridge has a storied past: rumored to have been built in England to be sold to Egypt to span the Nile River, unfortunately it was too short for the Nile and came to Winnipeg instead. The story seems to be lacking in any historical evidence; however it has become a part of the narrative and folklore of Winnipeg. Falling short of the Nile, the Arlington Bridge is reconfigured in Collapse as a monument to its imagined grandeur and geographic exoticism and longing. Together these works explore the human desire and longing for concrete manifestations of perception, and encourage us to recognize structures, borders, and geography not as objective reality, but instead as fluid social, political and cultural experiences. ********** Mia Feuer was born in Winnipeg, Canada. She received her BFA Honors degree from the University of Manitoba in 2004. In 2006, she had her first solo exhibition A Land That Buries Its Children at Outworks Gallery in Winnipeg. Mia is currently a 2009 MFA candidate in the Department of Sculpture and Extended Media at Virginia Commonwealth University. In the summer of 2009, through the funding of the Winnipeg Arts Council, she will be traveling back to the Palestinian Occupied Territories to conduct further artistic research. Angela Jerardi is a curator based in Philadelphia, PA. Angela has worked with a number of mid-Atlantic art museums, non-profit organizations, and alternative spaces, including: the Freer and Sackler Galleries, Smithsonian Institution, the Gallery at Flashpoint, and Transformer, all in Washington, DC, Maryland Art Place, Baltimore, MD, and the Arts Council of Fairfax County, Fairfax, VA. Recent curatorial projects include: CONSUME at the Gallery at Flashpoint (Washington, DC), re:place, co-produced with the Art in Transition program (Silver Spring, MD), beauty and the mundane at Maryland Art Place (Baltimore, MD), and Oxford Occasional projects dance by chance and a commemoration of now!
Best Regards,
Images:
Extra Ephemera and Digital Detritus: Official Press Release (.pdf) Curatorial Essay by Angela Jerardi (.pdf)
Press: ArtBlog: Mia Feuer: “Displacement” at FLUX Space by Andrea Kirsh
For more information on this show, contact info[at]thefluxspace[dot]org. |
