New Viewings #18

The exhibition is anchored by two video works. Falling to get here (2017) by Suné Woods offers an investigation of intimacy through a compelling representation of the joy and pain of black relation; the political and economic pressure that renders such relation impossible; and the miracle of the persistence of such relation in the face of impossibility. Succession (2018) by Ranu Mukherjee, references the process of ecological succession, the regeneration of a habitat after a devastating event, in this case the California wildfires. As two dancers move through landscape of charred trees and soil, the viewer is placed within the catastrophe, literally and metaphorically, and has to reconcile that at this moment of crisis, that our health is inextricably tied to the health of the Earth. The shock of green grass provides some hope. While we may never become whole, perhaps we may be able to create some equilibrium and balance in order to heal and change.