September 16 – December 3
Artists Space is pleased to present Posibles Escenarios, Vol. 1 LNN, the first solo exhibition of Las Nietas de Nonó, the Puerto Rico based afro-diasporic siblings, mulowayi and mapenzi nonó. Weaving together performance, reusable and found objects, organic materials, ecology, fiction, video, and installation, this major exhibition foregrounds the artist’s utterly imaginative approaches to advocacy and liberation.
Posibles Escenarios, Vol. 1 LNN is a grouping of newly commissioned multimedia works that extend Las Nietas’s explorations of themes such as processes of expropriation and colonial violence against Black communities and the development of microhistories in relation to geopolitics. Throughout Artists Space’s ground floor, a series of interconnected abstract, biomorphic mixed-media installations prompts visceral, emotional, and sensory responses—the largest of which is a biodegradable installation entitled Sala Portal Omi. Made of SCOBY (symbiotic culture of bacteria and yeast)—the fermentation discs that develop during the production of kombucha—the installation creates what the artist calls “a restorative place for healing.” Believing that performative manifestations are vehicles to unveil silenced histories, it will double as a stage for a new theatrical performance premiering October 27-30.
Entering the main gallery of the polymorphous exhibition, visitors travel through a set of possible scenarios populated by plants, experimental sound, and film. Utilizing scene shifting—a theatrical technique used to indicate a change of locale—Las Nietas approaches the exhibition much like an album tracklist, cycling through organic materials and the sound of rapid beats, rhythmic rap songs, and natural melodies to archive nature’s vibrations in the midst of displacement caused by the legacy of colonialism and the current climate crisis. A centerpiece of the exhibition is the premiere of a new film, FOODTOPIA: en el suelo áspero, set in Rome and reflecting on subjective experiences of food in the memories and histories of its actors. The exhibition as a whole can be read as a set of discursive platforms that reflect on issues of ecology, land, food autonomy, and to strategize about modes of survival and recovery.
Las Nietas de Nonó will perform within the exhibition on the following dates:
Thursday, October 27, at 7pm
Saturday, October 29, at 1pm
Sunday, October 30, at 7pm
