FEBRUARY 12 - MARCH 2, 2025
Sugar Maple Glacial Lake Station
Sugar Maple Glacial Lake Station, an installation by transdisciplinary choreographer and librarian Sara Smith, carries us to the future era of INT (an abbreviation for "In Network Time"), a world rooted in the writings and archives of the queer Chicana writer and activist Gloria Anzaldúa as modeled by octopuses, made possible by bacterial communication networks. The increased multisensory faculties humans have in INT enable greater organizing with and accountability to all planetary creatures and systems.
This exhibition, in the form of a regional "information-reflection station", imagines that we are already living in the care networks of INT and invites us to think, reflect, and feel backwards from that future, to consider how we might be able to collectively reach toward a more just, ecologically driven, actively interconnected existence on Earth. What is the pathway from here to INT? What physical and mental capacities must we develop and hone to live in that possible future? What behaviors must we lose and shift?
Sugar Maple Glacial Lake Station layers atmospheric sound, video, sculptural assemblage, works on paper, and texts in English and Spanish (translations by María José Gimenez), extending previous iterations of Smith's ongoing expanded performance project Inside the Breath (In Network Time). The installation features collaged and collected source materials, including materials such as glass and compost that transform or have been transformed through heat. Videos, music, and texts also contain contributions from other local artists.
This exhibition, in the form of a regional "information-reflection station", imagines that we are already living in the care networks of INT and invites us to think, reflect, and feel backwards from that future, to consider how we might be able to collectively reach toward a more just, ecologically driven, actively interconnected existence on Earth. What is the pathway from here to INT? What physical and mental capacities must we develop and hone to live in that possible future? What behaviors must we lose and shift?
Sugar Maple Glacial Lake Station layers atmospheric sound, video, sculptural assemblage, works on paper, and texts in English and Spanish (translations by María José Gimenez), extending previous iterations of Smith's ongoing expanded performance project Inside the Breath (In Network Time). The installation features collaged and collected source materials, including materials such as glass and compost that transform or have been transformed through heat. Videos, music, and texts also contain contributions from other local artists.
|
ADDITIONAL PROGRAMMING and EVENTS
At the A.P.E. Main St. Gallery FRIDAY, FEB 14th • 6:30pm (during Arts Night Out) Gallery Talk with artist Sara Smith SUNDAY, MARCH 2 • 3pm Art, Anzaldúa, & Nepantla A Conversation with Diana Aldrete, Patricia Montoya, & Vick Quezada **** AT LOCULUS STUDIOS, 80 Race St. Holyoke, MA SATURDAY, FEB 22nd • 7pm Shift Again; a video screening + live singing by the Network Time Human Chorus (and you?) *with a special reading by Andrea Lawlor SUNDAY, FEB 23rd • 1-4pm Micro-Attentional Techniques for Humans workshop (aka MATH class) |
|
About the artist:
Sara Smith creates speculative-documentary performances and other works that explore interconnection and the poetics and politics of embodied and archival research. Their working process is rooted in physical practices of micro-attention and relational transformation. Sara's artworks have been seen and heard in theaters, museums, studios, public parks, recreation center basements, and cloud-based platforms. They have been a recipient of the Massachusetts Cultural Council Fellowship award in Choreography, and of support from The LEF Foundation, Maine Arts Commission, NEFA, the Puffin Foundation, and residency fellowships from MacDowell, Yaddo, Hewnoaks, and The American Antiquarian Society. From 2010-2017 Sara edited KINEBAGO, a forum for writing by and about New England dance makers and movement researchers. Sara is the Arts & Humanities Librarian at Amherst College. sarasmithprojects.com
Sara Smith creates speculative-documentary performances and other works that explore interconnection and the poetics and politics of embodied and archival research. Their working process is rooted in physical practices of micro-attention and relational transformation. Sara's artworks have been seen and heard in theaters, museums, studios, public parks, recreation center basements, and cloud-based platforms. They have been a recipient of the Massachusetts Cultural Council Fellowship award in Choreography, and of support from The LEF Foundation, Maine Arts Commission, NEFA, the Puffin Foundation, and residency fellowships from MacDowell, Yaddo, Hewnoaks, and The American Antiquarian Society. From 2010-2017 Sara edited KINEBAGO, a forum for writing by and about New England dance makers and movement researchers. Sara is the Arts & Humanities Librarian at Amherst College. sarasmithprojects.com