The Wexner Center for the Arts at The Ohio State University presents a suite of new exhibitions from February 11 to July 9, 2023.
The Wexner Center for the Arts at The Ohio State University will host a series of exhibitions created by artists that share common ideas in activism, environmental issues, and the potential of art as a weapon for empowerment. Each exhibition includes previously unseen artwork commissioned by the center or financed by a Wexner Center Artist Residency Award. The displays will be on display from February 11 until July 9, 2023.
Meditation Ocean Constellation: Meditation Ocean
Meditation Ocean promotes climate justice through underwater meditations and land-based acts that encourage us to consider the interconnectedness of human and environmental healing. Hope Ginsburg (she/her) developed and led the project, which was created by the Meditation Ocean Constellation, a group of artists, writers, educators, meditators, musicians, curators, divers, and scientists.
M.O. Turtlegrass Meadow (2023) is the exhibition’s centerpiece, a large-screen, six-channel video work that provides an immersive ocean environment, inviting thought and involvement.
This is the culmination of Ginsburg’s two-year Artist Residency Award and her decades-long relationship with the Wex.
Meditation Ocean is curated by Film/Video Studio Curator Jennifer Lange. A gallery guide will include a preface by Lange and texts by Melody Jue and Anaïs Duplan.
Sa’dia Rehman (they/them), a two-year recipient of the Wexner Center Artist Residency Award, will present a new body of work that explores memory, sorrow, and migration.
The displacement of Rehman’s family from their hamlet in Pakistan in 1974 by the construction of the Tarbela Dam on the Indus River serves as the starting point for their project. The show is named after a poem written by Rehman’s sister, Bushra.
Rehman looks beyond their family history to the global history of land and water, as well as narratives of passage and home, performing extensive archival research and talks with relatives, community people, scientists, and environmentalists.
the river runs slow is curated by Director of Learning and Public Practice Dionne Custer Edwards. A gallery guide will include a text by Custer Edwards and a dialogue between Rehman and curator, writer, and educator Regine Basha.
A.K. Burns’s greatest solo exhibition to date examines the convergence of the human, nonhuman, and environmental—as well as the value systems that shape our perceptions of each. Negative Space, a layered story made of four video installations that examine the interaction of basic physical systems: the void, the body, land, or water, serves as the centerpiece. For the first time, viewers will be able to see the entire tetralogy as well as a new, Wex-commissioned work, What Is Perverse Is Liquid (2023). Negative Space is set in an imagined world where boundaries are fluid and hierarchies are challenged. Each exhibit includes a community of artists, choreographers, and musicians, as well as a Geo Wyex soundtrack.
The exhibition includes related works created for Negative Space, along with a significant body of sculptures and wall works produced over the last decade. A catalogue, Negative Space, copublished by the Wex and Dancing Foxes Press is forthcoming.
Of space we are… is curated by Chief Curator of Exhibitions Kelly Kivland.
Anna Tsouhlarakis: The Native Guide Project: Columbus
Anna Tsouhlarakis (she/her), a Navajo, Creek, and Greek artist, reframes the conversation on Native American identity. She focuses her attention for this show on the forced migration of Indigenous peoples, notably those in the Central Ohio area.
The Native Guide Project: Columbus is a new, multilayered commission that expands on Tsouhlarakis’s The Native Guide Project (2019-present), which employs variously poignant phrases and will engage the Wex’s interior and exterior spaces, as well as sites around Columbus through a partnership with Orange Barrel Media.
This exhibition is curated by Kelly Kivland.
Events
Anna Tsouhlarakis, Breath of the Wind (2007): January 9–February 28
Video work highlighting the devastating long-term effects of environmental racism in Anna Tsouhlarakis’ community.
Exhibition preview: February 10, 4–9pm
Breathe: An artist-led meditation series: March 4–April 8
A hybrid meditation series featuring Hope Ginsburg, Cadine Navarro, and Anaïs Duplan
Hope Ginsburg in conversation: March 9, 5:30–7pm
Ginsburg discusses Meditation Ocean w/curator Jennifer Lange and editor Alexis McCrimmon. Streams on wexarts.org
Sa’dia Rehman and Jean Shin in conversation: March 30, 5–6:30pm
Rehman and Shin discuss process and practice. Streams on wexarts.org
Hope Ginsburg, Cadine Navarro, and Anaïs Duplan: April 20, 6–8pm
Ginsburg, Navarro, and Duplan reflect on how breathwork and meditation connects to their practice.
Wexner Center for the Arts
1871 N. High Street
The Ohio State University
Columbus, Ohio 43210
United States
T +1 614 292 3535
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