HER.E i see lotus
A two-part film & video exhibition and performance program curated by Luxin Zhang
Part I: Friday, January 11, 2019 – Wednesday, January 30, 2019
Part II: Thursday, January 31, 2019 – Sunday, February 17, 2019
Curatorial Statement
Organized as part of Vox Populi’s ongoing 4th Wall series, HER.E i see lotus, a film & video exhibition and performance program curated by Luxin Zhang, features the works of thirteen emerging, rising, and established international female artists living in the USA today working in video, film and/or performance. These artists embrace their own heritage, whilst consolidating a certain individualistic flair to their pieces. Works include short and mid-length film, experimental video, performance, fiction and documentary.
HER.E i see lotus is divided into two sections: Part I, Ripples on the water brings awareness to an array of themes pertaining to experience, observation, reflection, experimentation and being in the USA. PART II, Jiggling Petals showcases work that embodies strength, identity, intimacy and depth.
PART I, Ripples on the water
Jan 11, 2019 – Jan 30, 2019
Various | 2019 | 80 minutes
This program features Onikuma by Alessia Cecchet, Faceshop by Zhongwen Hu, Tweet, Tweet by Yixuan Pan, Golden Carelessness by Boryana Rossa, an american family by Kieu-Anh Truong, John 746 by Ana Vîjdea, and Noble Marble by Loraine Wible.
Onikuma by Alessia Cecchet
12’09’’, 2016
Onikuma is Japanese yokai, a demon bear known for chasing horses. Surrounded by a foreign landscape, two women will understand that demons can come in different forms.
Faceshop by Zhongwen Hu
5’31’’, 2018
There is a shop located on a mysterious street that can help people to achieve their dream faces by cutting and modeling. It’s called “Faceshop”. One day, a man without a face came to the shop to have his first experience.
Tweet, Tweet by Yixuan Pan
3’33’’, 2018
In collaboration with artist Liz McCarthy, I worked with the 8th graders from the Fishers Island School. Liz taught the students how to make whistles by using clay dug from the Fishers Island clay pit; I led an anti-choir workshop with the students utilizing the whistles they made. The performance is in response to the bird calls on the island.
Golden Carelessness by Boryana Rossa
8’36’’, 2017
Performed together with If Nickl, Sylvie Leiner and Alexandra Gschiel
Live performance at FACES: Gender, Technology, Art. Shaumbad, Graz, Austria and at Studio 10, Brooklyn, NY.
This performance reflects the contrast between the insensitivity of the current political class in the US (and not only) to the suffering of migrants, to the victims of war and to the problem of poverty and increasing inequality in a time of globalization.
an american family by Kieu-Anh Truong
18’52’’, 2018
Vignettes of daily interactions in a kitchen that belongs to a single mother, her teenage son and their pregnant tenant.
John 746 by Ana Vîjdea
30’00’’, 2016
An artist decides to involve his audience in the making of his magnum opus: The Destruction of Art.
Noble Marble by Loraine Wible
03’11’’, 2018
This experimental animation explores seemingly absurd questionings related to a Western value system still very anchored in classical ideals.
Part II, Jiggling Petals opens on Thursday, January 30 and features work by Yueying Feng, Salome Kokoladze, Yaloo Ji Yeon Lim, Selma Selman, Sichong Xie and Yilu Yang.
Artist Bios – Part I
Alessia Cecchet is a maker of moving images. Originally from Italy, she makes hybrid films that incorporate live action film, found footage, stop motion animation, fibers and sculpture. Her work explores matters of loss, grief and memory with a specific attention with the way we look at animals and specifically animal death. Alessia holds an MFA in Film from Syracuse University and is a Ph.D Candidate in Film and Digital Media at the University of California Santa Cruz. Alessia’s films have been shown in several countries such as Italy, the US, Australia, Germany, the UK, Egypt, Spain, Republic of Kosovo, Czech Republic, Portugal, Romania, Sweden and Iran.
http://www.alessiacecchet.com/
Zhongwen Hu is a New York based painter, illustrator, and animator, who is proficient in combining joy and peace, and expresses the vibrant spirit and atmosphere of daily life scene. With a sensitive approach, her work can be seen in projects for galleries, book publishing and editorial. Among her many honors and awards include those from Top Shorts Online Film Festival Best Experimental Film; Five Continents International Film Festival Best Animation Short Film; Best Shorts Competition Award of Merit: Animation; etc. Zhongwen’s many exhibitions include those at “30 under 30” at Viridian Artists, curated by Whitney Museum Curator Chrissie Iles; Axis Gallery Sacramento; ArtHelix; Point of Contact Gallery; Baton Rouge Gallery; Random Access Gallery; Spark Contemporary Art Space; and Michael Sickler Gallery; among others.
https://www.zhongwenhu.com/
Yixuan Pan is an artist who was born and raised in the land of fish and rice, Hunan, China. To deal with issues of translation and communication as well as reimagining the western hegemony through a global outlook, her anti-disciplinary practice merges multiple media and modes of presentation such as installation, video, performance, lollipop making, music therapy practicing, choral conducting, and more. By dislocating language from its context and form, Pan questions the linguistic structures people learn and unlearn in relation to comfort, temperature, transparency, hierarchy and power dynamics.
Pan is a recipient of the Lighthouse Works Fellowship, Vermont Studio Center Fellowship, University Fellowship at Temple University, and the Laurie Wagman Prize in Glass at Tyler School of Art. Pan’s work have been exhibited nationally and internationally, including: Temple Contemporary Gallery, Vox Populi, Icebox Project, Fringe Arts, The Woodmere Art Museum and the National Liberty Museum in Philadelphia, PA; The Pine Barren Gallery, Whitesbog Village, NJ; ARC Gallery, Chicago, IL; Yin Yang Acupuncture, Portland, OR; Bush Barn Art Center, Salem, OR; Asakusa KAMINARI, Tokyo, Japan; Haukijärvi Forest, Finland; CSUFT, Changsha, China. Pan holds a MFA in Glass from Tyler School of Art, Temple University; a BA from George Fox University in Oregon and a BA from Central South University of Forestry and Technology in China. And she did not stop learning.
http://www.panyixuanpan.com/
Boryana Rossa is an interdisciplinary artist and curator who works in the fields of electronic arts, film, video, performance, and photography. Rossa’s works have been shown internationally at such venues as Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art at the Brooklyn Museum, N.Y.; Feldman Gallery, N.Y.; Exit Art, N.Y., Kunstwerke and Akademie der Kunste, Berlin; the 1st and 2nd Moscow Biennial For Contemporary Art; Museum of Contemporary Art (MUMOK), Vienna; Zacheta Gallery, Warsaw; Sofia City Art Gallery; Institute of Contemporary Art, Sofia, Bulgaria; Sofia Arsenal – Museum of Contemporary Art (SAMCA), Sofia; National Gallery of Fine Arts, Sofia; 1st Balkan Biennale, Thesaloniki, Coreana Museum, Seoul.
http://boryanarossa.com
Kieu-Anh Truong is from Ho Chi Minh City, Viet Nam and has spent several years in the U.S pursuing filmmaking. Her films center on the notions of home and family. “an american family” and “Distant Interiors” are observations of different family dynamics and subtle nuances of cohabitation. Both short films show a keen interest in creating cinematic interiors where mini family-dramas unfold. Her films have been screened at Los Angeles Asian American Film Festival, Ithaca Pan Asian American Film Festival, Syracuse International Film Festival and soon at Seattle Asian American Festival. She also did video works for non-profit organizations such as the International Rescue Committee and Asia Society.
https://kieuanhtruongfilms.wordpress.com
Ana Vîjdea was born in Romania in 1991. She has a BA in Cinematography and Media and an MA in Interactive Multimedia from Babes-Bolyai University in Cluj-Napoca. Between 2012 and 2016 she was awarded several scholarships which allowed her to study in Turkey, Portugal and the United States. At the moment she is pursuing a MFA in Film at Syracuse University.
French expatriate and Pataphysics enthusiast, Loraine Wible works with digital material to bring to this world joyfully surrealist, absurdly political, and radically futuristic post cards from her intellectual and emotional voyages. She has spent the last decade in Cincinnati where she ran art museum parodies, curated literally elevated art shows, opened fictitious art galleries, sang songs devoted to lasers, bitched about the future, and made a never-ending stream of non-existing images. She also recently joined the Art Academy of Cincinnati as assistant professor of video and motion graphics and the Philadelphia-based art collective Vox Populi.
http://www.lorainewible.com/
About the Curator
Luxin Zhang is an interdisciplinary artist and curator who works in Philadelphia, PA. She holds a B.S from Far Eastern University and received her MFA from Syracuse University in the College of Visual and Performing Arts. Her work often takes the form of performance, video, sound and photography. As a classically trained vocalist, she creates video and performance that plays with audience expectation. Widening the lens of performance and stage to include original audience, gallery viewers and mundane “off stage” scenes expands the spectrum of a song’s larger subliminal language.
Luxin Zhang has exhibited and performed internationally in galleries, museums, concert halls, including Everson Museum of Art in Syracuse; David Geffen Hall, Lincoln Center in New York. Her work was also shown at Light Work in Syracuse, N.Y. She recently joined Vox Populi Gallery in Philadelphia, PA as an artist collective member.