A Passing Scene
Curated by Minzi Li
Opening Reception Sunday 14 April 5-8pm
Kei Ito, Gabo Arora, Marcela Huerta, Shengxu Jin,
Nate Larson, Ruth E Toulson, Micro Yuan’er,
Jialin Yang & Ted Whitaker
Programs:
Opening Reception
Sunday, April 14, 5-8pm
Film Screening with Ruth E. Toulson April 27, 6-8pm
Exhibition De-installation Experience May 25-26, 1-4pm
Closing Reception & “Trails Left” Event Friday, May 31. 5-8pm
Off-site Programs:
The Last Goodbye
April 17, 12-4pm.@JHU-MICA Film Center 10 E North Ave, Baltimore, MD 21202
Leaf Vein Bookmark Lab Workshop
May 11, 1-4pm. next door at
The Station North Tool Library
417 E Oliver St, Baltimore, MD 21202
About the Curator
Originally from China, Minzi Li is an emerging curator and MFA candidate in Curatorial Practice at Maryland Institute College of Art. She has co-curated Legame, a workshop exhibition at the Venice Biennale, as well as the Baltimore-located group shows Land Trust, Everything Must Go and Dark Passenger. As the president of GradEx, she has organized and co-curated the off-campus group shows Mirror and Expression, and several student solo exhibitions. Having graduated with a CIDA-accredited degree in Interior Design, she uses her current research to focus on the rhythm, circulation, and lighting environment of exhibitions.
About MICA’s Curatorial Practice Program
MICA’s MFA in Curatorial Practice prepares students to determine how curators will shape the cultural life of our global society. Students work in a variety of experimental contexts and formats, proposing alternative models of exhibition-making, institution-building, and social justice through art. Designed to forge connections among artists, institutions, and communities, the program fosters contemporary art and culture in collaboration with diverse audiences, and links local issues to international discourse.
About the Venue
Located in a 170 year-old artist-owned warehouse within Baltimore’s Station North Arts and Entertainment District, AREA 405 is committed to showcasing and strengthening the vitality of the arts community throughout Baltimore and beyond.
A Passing Scene has been generously supported by MICA’s MFA in Curatorial Practice, AREA 405, MICA Film Center and Station North Tool Library.
Curated by Minzi Li, A Passing Scene features works by artists who examine the experiences of parting, and the ritualistic act of memorializing what is no longer present. These photographs, installations, films and archives act as a monument to the inevitability of ephemerality, to the lingering presence of all that has disappeared. Each artist in the show draws inspiration from family stories and offers a slice of their own cultural heritage; together, their artworks recreate diverse scenes of immigration, dislocation, atomic warfare, and the Holocaust. The works especially highlight how different geopolitical contexts have shaped these artists' lives-and how history has left its trail on each of them.
A Passing Scene does not merely offer opportunities for visual spectatorship but, under the power and intimacy of both the artists' and viewers' experiences, it invites one to talk about these precarious experiences in a public space. The theater-like design of AREA 405 enhances the artist-led tours and other programs offered during the exhibition, allowing participants to immerse themselves in reconstructions and deconstructions of events and sites that have ceased to exist.
Victoria, British Columbia-born writer and freelance designer Marcela Huerta is the author of Tropico, a collection of narrative poems memorizing the grief about her father’s passing as a second-generation immigrant and the daughter of political refugees from Chile. Her poems detailed described the struggling stories which was oral told by her parent and how memories could be so blurred and untrustworthy from different perspectives.
Baltimore-based Japanese artist, Kei Ito, addresses issues of deep loss and intergenerational connection as he explores the materiality and experimental processes of photography. His work deals with trauma and legacy passed down from his late grandfather, a survivor of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and a later anti-nuclear activist, in relation to current threats of nuclear disaster. Ito’s artworks lead the audience on a journey from grief and remembrance to hope.
Grew up on the border between China and North Korea: a place mixed with Chinese and Korean. Shengxu Jin’s works offer audiences a window onto the concerns of third-generation Korean immigrant. Originated from his identity and the dislocation of his homeland, the “Void” feeling prompted the artist to create an illusory scene when he thought about the place where he belonged. Viewers could find the artist internalizing his subtle emotion of nostalgia in exploring his imagined world.
Working with big data, historical research, and community partnerships to create expanded documentary projects, Nate Larson presents his personal worldview through his site-specific research. Born in Indiana, this Baltimore-based contemporary photographer harmonizes the insights of abstract datasets with the personal storytelling that comes from one-on-one relationships. His work is exhibited both nationally and internationally and is included in collections such as High Museum Atlanta, Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, and many more.
Micro Yuan’er/Jialin
Jialin Yang and Ted Whitaker held and documented the last event with the local children at Micro Yuan. The artist, Ted and manager, Jialin invited these children to make their own tiny ceramic sculptures and bury them hese archival collections were made with the material from the last event held by the manager from Micro Yuan’er project.
