Welcome to session #2 of the online space Migratory Times, “Silhouettes.”
Silhouettes are made by amateurs, artists, alike, and even cast as a shadow in the everyday. A silhouette is a shadow, profile, miniature cuttings, shadow portrait, illuminating a relationship between light and dark. Utilized by artists and activists alike, the mobilization of the silhouette in the visual has, as described by Gwendolyn DuBois Shaw, the capability to image race and “otherness.” Some silhouettes are iconic – where the relationship between the light and dark have captured local and global imaginaries. Kara Walker’s paper silhouettes tell a story of the US south as one shaped by violence, both sexual and racial. The Mothers of Plaza de Mayo, an association formed in the 1970s, drew awareness to the disappearances occurring during the Argentinian dictatorship (1976 – 1983). Through shadows, the place with light and dark, outlines, silhouettes speak. As this session illuminates, silhouettes manifest in intentional and unintentional actions by artists, community members, scholars, and producers. The image that is created through the interplay and production of light and dark, speaks to coloniality and oppression. As described by Maria Lugones, “Given the coloniality of power, I think we can also say that having a dark and a light side is characteristic of the co-construction of the coloniality of power and the colonial/modern gender system” (2007).
This session includes events that occurred since 2017. It includes a Salon of the Institute of (Im)Possible Subjects with Pedro Pablo Gomez, that occurred in March 2017 – transcripts and audio of the salon are featured. This session also features pedagogical conversation, a Salon with the Institute of (Im)Possible Subjects – Silhouettes: Migration, (Un)Documented, and Pedagogies, where IiS members Fukushima and Benfield facilitated discussions surrounding the work of Sonia Guiñansaca and artist and muralist Ruby Chacón, and invited Crystal Baik, Jose Manuel Cortez, Cindy Cruz, Marie Sarita Gaytan and Juan Herrera. Silhouettes include the contributions of the artist Kakyoung Lee and her work from the “Barbed Wire Series” which consists of a series of prints, multi-channel moving-image installation, and a cat’s cradle shadow installation. Stills from Kiri Dalena’s Arrays of Evidence Installation, are showcased, in which this project was also contributor to the Migratory Times Project. Also included are images and the video, “Christmas in our Hearts” by RESBAK (RESpond and Break the silence Against the Killings), a collective of artists, media practitioners, and cultural workers that unite to condemn in the strongest possible terms the Duterte regime’s brutal war on drugs. In the Spirit of Itzpaplotl, Venceremos, introduces a feminist collaboration between artist and painter, Ruby Chacón, photographs by Flor Olivo, and feminist scholarly research by Dr. Sonya Alemán. Additionally, featured video and images produced through “Women in Migration” (2017) which consisted of a collaboration between the Institute of (Im)Possible Subjects (IiS) with the University of Utah Museum of Fine Arts A.C.M.E. session featuring IiS members Dalida Maria Benfield, Damali Abrams, and Annie Isabel Fukushima, and collaborations with UMFA Jorge Rojas and Emily Izzo and Utah community members Romeo Jackson, Maria, Yehemy, Veronica, Alejandra, Ashley, Jean, Alex, Akiva, Kylee, Andrew, and Christina. Therefore, Silhouettes is an invitation to scholars, artists, visual producers, the everyday person, to submit works that speak to the coloniality and oppression through the silhouette.
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Session #2
Session #2: Silhouettes
“Barbed Wire Series”
The “Barbed Wire Series” consists of a series of prints, multi-channel moving image installations, and a cat’s cradle shadow installation. It’s based on the shape of the barbed wire at the US army base in my hometown in South Korea. The memory of walking along the barbed wire fence in my old hometown and playing cat’s cradle with my sister against the wall connects to the political tension on military borders. Despite the growing threats and tension at borders, the shapes of the tangled and distorted barbed wire are aesthetically repetitive and beautiful as abstract line drawings. I hope there is a way to peacefully loosen the tangled tension as if it were like children playing cat’s cradle.
Kakyoung Lee received her BFA and MFA from Hong-Ik University, as well as an MFA from SUNY-Purchase College, NY. She has exhibited in numerous exhibitions internationally, including at the Drawing Center, New York; Hofstra University, Hempstead; Kunsthalle Bremen, DE; Mass MOCA, North Adams; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Museum of Contemporary Art, Banja Luka, Bosnia; Museum Folkwang, Essen, DE; Museum of Modern Art, New York; Oqbo, Berlin, DE; Queens Museum, New York; and Seoul Arts Center, Korea. She has held residencies at Omi, ISCP, Jamaica Center for Arts and Learning, Marie Walsh Sharp Foundation, MacDowell Colony, and Yaddo. She has received the Pollock-Krasner Foundation grant, NYFA Fellowship, the Ahl Foundation grant, and KAFA award. She was the 2017 recipient of the American Academy of Arts and Letter Purchase Award.
Lee’s works are in the collections of Asia Society, New York; McNay Art Museum, TX; the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Cleveland Museum of Art, Ohio; and Library of Congress, Washington D.C. among others.