Back to Square One
opening reception: Saturday, January 25, 5pm-7pm
artists talk during the reception at 6pm
exhibition: January 26 to February 16, 2025
hours: Fridays 12-6pm, Saturdays Sundays 12-4pm
First Friday: February 7, open 5pm-9pm with public workshop making tiles in the exhibition from 6pm-8pm
artists:
Irene Carvajal, guest co-curator
Adrienne Defendi
Nina K Ekman
Victoria Heilweil
Pantea Karimi, guest co-curator
Deborah Kennedy
Jessica Kwong
Back to Square One is a story of conquest, erasure, and appropriation. Through the cultural and archival research of artists Pantea Karimi and Irene Carvajal the beauty of decorative tile-work gets deconstructed and investigated as a carrier of historic and cultural narratives. For this exhibition, through printmaking, drawing, installation, and social practice Karimi, Carvajal and participating artists engage with traditional and historic tile-making methods, representation and iconography. Back to Square One unpacks historical narratives that are embedded in the decorative. By working in collaboration, they also touch on themes of appropriation, ownership and labor. The project interrogates the often-overlooked hands and intentions behind the creation of tiles. Whose stories are favored, what stories are silenced? How can we decode the narratives hidden within the decorative? The exhibition seeks to ignite conversations around the power of visual culture and how we can utilize this power to add our voices and our agendas to a broader and more diverse global conversation.
