Holly Wong: Mending Body/Mending Mind
A.I.R. Gallery is pleased to announce Mending Body/Mending Mind, an exhibition by National Artist Holly Wong, featuring an immersive fiber installation which incorporates a poem and sound composition by Aya Karpinska and two-channel video by Al Wong. This is Wong鈥檚 first exhibition of her installation work in New York City.
Mending Body/Mending Mind mines the unspoken secrets that exist between mothers and daughters. Images and audio situated in an immersive landscape of fabric reveal hidden sexual trauma: a two-channel video of sewing and personal grooming activities is projected onto the fabric, serving as a proxy for a sublimated kind of violence, while a poem and sound composition echoes through the space, detailing an abstracted tale of rape. The poem incorporates the words of Wong鈥檚 deceased mother telling her own harrowing story of sexual violence, and is spoken in an intimate dialogue between Karpinska and Wong herself.
The layering of these visual and sonic elements onto suspended textiles creates a sense of enclosure鈥攖he details of the mother鈥檚 story reveal themselves only in fragments, reflecting her response to the initial traumatic experience. But the textiles do more than just obfuscate. By completely enveloping her mother鈥檚 story in fabric, Wong metaphorically absorbs and releases her suffering, healing her of trauma. Using the language of traditional quilt making, the artist creates an environment of transparent shapes from silk, cotton, and antique lace that have been sewn together, cut, and then reassembled again into an improvised patchwork that emphasizes repair. Predominantly white or monochromatic fabric nods to the Buddhist mourning customs surrounding the transition to a new life and rebirth. The installation not only bears witness to the ways in which trauma disfigures the female body, it also imagines the process of mending as an expression of love between mother and daughter, creating a stronger whole.
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A.I.R. Gallery is pleased to announce Mending Body/Mending Mind, an exhibition by National Artist Holly Wong, featuring an immersive fiber installation which incorporates a poem and sound composition by Aya Karpinska and two-channel video by Al Wong. This is Wong鈥檚 first exhibition of her installation work in New York City.
Mending Body/Mending Mind mines the unspoken secrets that exist between mothers and daughters. Images and audio situated in an immersive landscape of fabric reveal hidden sexual trauma: a two-channel video of sewing and personal grooming activities is projected onto the fabric, serving as a proxy for a sublimated kind of violence, while a poem and sound composition echoes through the space, detailing an abstracted tale of rape. The poem incorporates the words of Wong鈥檚 deceased mother telling her own harrowing story of sexual violence, and is spoken in an intimate dialogue between Karpinska and Wong herself.
The layering of these visual and sonic elements onto suspended textiles creates a sense of enclosure鈥攖he details of the mother鈥檚 story reveal themselves only in fragments, reflecting her response to the initial traumatic experience. But the textiles do more than just obfuscate. By completely enveloping her mother鈥檚 story in fabric, Wong metaphorically absorbs and releases her suffering, healing her of trauma. Using the language of traditional quilt making, the artist creates an environment of transparent shapes from silk, cotton, and antique lace that have been sewn together, cut, and then reassembled again into an improvised patchwork that emphasizes repair. Predominantly white or monochromatic fabric nods to the Buddhist mourning customs surrounding the transition to a new life and rebirth. The installation not only bears witness to the ways in which trauma disfigures the female body, it also imagines the process of mending as an expression of love between mother and daughter, creating a stronger whole.
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