Open Kitchen -002_Nina Mdivani
If there is one thing that you can change in a previous project of yours, what would it be?
Photo by: Morrison Gong
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One positioning of the object that I would have changed in the hindsight for visual, but also for curatorial reasons, comes from a group show This is Not My Tree, that I curated at NARS Foundation, Brooklyn in the spring of 2021.
It was a show that was supposed to take place one year before but has been postponed due to the pandemic. The premise of the show was how natural environments and artists engaging with environments and ecosystems can reflect on the themes of migration, belonging, and the feeling of homelessness. Among the artworks presented by fourteen artists were a video and a full-size human clay figure by New York-based artist Jon Gomez that both documented a migrant's perilous journey through the Devil's Highway, Arizona. This figure and video needed a darkened space. But next to it, I positioned a site-specific work by another New York-based artist, Jan Dickey, that engaged with the symbology of hierarchy and control. This piece was blended onto the white wall by the artist and needed strong light to be adequately perceived by the viewers.
The three works were side by side, simultaneously sharing a symbolic space and anti-space. Only one could work for the viewers at a time; it was either a controlled hierarchy or a migrant's journey to freedom. So I ended up switching back and forth between the strong light for the wall piece and a dimmed light for the video and sculpture. Looking back at this exhibition, I see a more metaphorical ramification of this conflict that is very much rooted in our uneasy present-day American reality.
Images courtesy of Nina Mdivani.