and the alleyway to the prison’s garden

Format: Installation
Materials: Wood, metal, glue, reflective materials, video light projection
Dimensions: Variable sizes
Venue: Trestle Gallery (solo exhibition)
Year: 2018
Sister installation: Corner of my room (West Village, NY)

and the alleyway to the prison's garden was exhibited as a solo show at Trestle Gallery, in conversation with the public installation Corner of my room. Together, the two titles form an allegory of family relationships in exile and diaspora, questioning how physical distance shapes the fundamental structures of communication and connection between displaced parents and children. For the artist, this meant examining the emotional impact of intensive togetherness compressed into short bursts of time in a small space, followed by long stretches of separation across distant lands.

In making this work, the artist sought new means of deeper connection with their own family by interviewing each of their parents. During the conversations, they showed a series of videos depicting abstract interplays of light and shadow, originally filmed from metal and reflective sculptures reacting to light over time in the corner of the artist's studio, and asked two open ended questions: what do you see, and why do you say that. The videos' abstraction evoked architectural or natural landscapes, inducing a sense of losing one's grip on space.

The artist's father responded with formal descriptions of the light and shadow, interwoven with specific memories and emotional stories tied to fear and nostalgia. He guessed the videos were shot outdoors in natural scenery, responding to one passage: "Like a person struggling so hard, water has covered his face and only his eyes are showing."

Using movable geometric sculptures and mirror like surfaces shaped by the father's perception of space, the artist built an interactive playground of light and shadow. A projector activates the objects by playing the same video shown during the interview, and as the light source moves across the sculptures, the reflections cast ever shifting light drawings, their rays materializing into fluid forms that emulate ocean waves or passing clouds.

Documentation of the installation's movable sculptures, their reflective surfaces catching and redirecting the projected light into shifting form:

Publication

Spreads from the shared publication pairing this installation with its sister piece, Corner of my room.