The Harvard Square Business Association, in partnership with Intercontinental Management, is pleased to welcome “Tracing the Familiar”, the latest installation at the 25/8 artspace project located at 2 Linden Street in Harvard Square.
Behind VA Shadows presents this group show which is on view through June 15th. Guest-curated by Clarajames Daly, the exhibition presents a series of paintings and sculptures, featuring works by artists Miguel Caba, An Há, Michael Ilisoi, Vivian Tran, and Andrija Zekovic.
Denise Jillson, executive director of the Harvard Square Business Association, commented, “We are so thankful to Intercontinental Management for continuing to foster the arts in the public way. This popup gallery exhibits beautiful artwork that is to be enjoyed “from the street” in an unexpected location in Harvard Square.”
Drawing from the experiences of leaving home, Tracing the Familiar explores the tension between physical distance and emotional proximity with the notion of home, illuminating themes including memory, ephemerality, and domesticity. To construct a cohesive feel among the presented artworks, the exhibition embodies a support system of friendship, appreciation, and collaboration visible in the community to which the artists belong.
According to Daly, the exhibition was conceptualized surrounding the works of Ilisoi but soon evolved into a group project that engages with multiple artists from the same arts community at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts University. Similar to the snowball effect, the exhibition-making stems from the recommendations of artists to one another, building a network based on mutual appreciation and the desire to create dialogues with each other. Over the course of preparing for the exhibition, the artists shared, interacted, and responded to each other’s ideas, allowing the exhibition to unfold organically. For the curator, the process of collective organizing becomes an integral part in responding to the state of migration, underscoring the ability to create one’s own community regardless of location.
Within the gallery space, traces of memory permeate through representative approaches. Há and Ilisoi’s portraits, executed in house dust or oil, are both figurative and ambiguous. The use of positive and negative space and the decision for blank space further reveal the nature of memory: it’s transient, fluid, and fading, existing in gaps. These gaps enable room for composites of the new and the familiar to grow, manifested in the works of Caba, Há, Tran, and Zekovic. Domesticity is re-enacted in new contexts, provoking a sense of oddity as well as familiarity. Shirts enclose found drawers, couch patterns imprint on wall-mounted structures, and lights flicker through styrofoam packing materials. The subversion of materiality and its associated attributes highlights the resilience of memory. As each artist moves across different spaces, they also carry along their complex yet unique experiences, enriching dialogues on the notions of home and the familiar.
Following the vein of Tracing the Familiar, Daly also questions the effectiveness of digital tools in allowing us to stay connected. In turn, the curator seeks for physical forms of connectivity through a letter-writing programming event on May 30; participants are invited to write letters, imparting more effort in acknowledging the people who form their support systems.