Nature of Reality

WAAS was currently exhibiting a sense of growth and nourishment through the exhibition by Shamsy titled Cocoon. By the use of real plants, not only was it visually represented, but physically. 

Plants use soil to grow, some of them... at least the plants in the exhibition. 

After visiting the Warehouse and seeing Salcedo’s work, I recalled her piece Plegaria Muda when Salcedo was awarded the first Nasher Prize in 2016. I did not take pictures of the exhibition that day, but the scent of the soil in a gallery space that day impacted me the most. When researching the piece for the lecture, reviews mentioned the scent of the grass as predominant, but not to me. 

After establishing the material connection between the current exhibition and the lecture/workshop to be presented, I immersed myself in learning about the piece, and the artist. 



I was initially going to include Nadia Kabi-Linke’s piece, Tunisian Americans which was the piece across from Salcedo’s Untitled, and utilized soil as a major component of the piece as well. Upon researching the two, I felt the connections were too political and with a very heavy sense of death for the exhibition space I was entering. I decided to focus on just one, and selected Salcedo’s because the soil was nestled between two boards of wood, and allowed the air to move through it, as opposed to Tunisian American Soldiers, which presented the soil in individual glass air-tight vials.

I would like to revisit their ways of using soil in their pieces, but I wanted this project to be a way to limit my options and focus on one thing. I struggled, it is still hard for me to know what information is best to include and what to leave out. The connections between the lecture and workshop were not established until like a week before I was scheduled to present. It was interesting to be researching the piece, my audience demographics, ways to find sponsorship for the event, as well as touching base with the gallery and the other people involved in ensuring the event was a success. Overall, I had a month of time to research and implement, although accomplished, I would have felt better with 3. I also have to realize the subject matter of research, restricting my time to research is important in the future.