Exhibition

"Soft Boundary"

Curated by Wanhang Chao, Tzu-Ying Chan, Yindi Chen, Eunice Chen, Virginia Ingram, Kyungah Lee, Uttara Parekh, Sophia Park and Caroline Taylor Shehan, under the supervision of Noam Segal 

Artists: Noémie Jennifer Bonnet, Utsa Hazarika, Christopher Lin, Naomi Nakazato, Steven Uccello 

April 14 – 27, 2022 

Opening Reception: Thursday, April 14, 6:00 – 9:00 pm 

Pfizer Building, Ground Floor, 630 Flushing Ave, Brooklyn, NY, 11206 

By appointment only, Monday – Sunday, 11:00 am – 6:00 pm ET. For appointments please email: Contact cshehan@sva.edu  

"Soft Boundary" is a group exhibition that examines the everyday distortions that occur around us, curated by nine MA Curatorial Practice students. The artists in the exhibition deploy distortion as a means of restructuring known relationships with the larger, unspoken organizing structures that we exist in, such as the natural environment, our own bodies and social narratives. Distortion of the boundaries that define these structures enables us to see beyond their limits, to be more considerate of other beings and matter and to illuminate the rich matrix that unites us all. In softness there is strength.  

Noémie Jennifer Bonnet’s sculptures and wall hangings fuse conventional materials like resin and acrylic paint with burlap, branches and bones to create hybrid forms that embody her concern for our ecological crisis and changes within her own body. Utsa Hazarika deconstructs the conventional cinematic gaze that prioritizes frontality by using a broken mirror to scatter the image across the room, blurring the line between film and sculpture. Christopher Lin combines synthetic and natural materials in art objects that demonstrate their connection with humans in the larger narrative of Earth’s time. Naomi Nakazato investigates the ways language systems are inverted through digital portals such as Google Maps and Google Translate to contemplate the authenticity of these mediators. Steven Uccello captures weight loss through photography and time-based sculptures that are made of pitch, a material that appears to be solid, but slowly melts and transforms under gravitational force.  

In concert, the works in "Soft Boundary" renegotiate how the mechanism of distortion affects our understanding of different operations of the world. By exploring diverse materials and organizing systems through the lens of distortion, the works in the exhibition traverse the thresholds we are all familiar with to redefine the known relationships with the environment, the body and society.