The exhibition I gently place mine brain in cold rice is homeschool founders manuel arturo abreu and Victoria Anne Reis’ first installation of their year-long curatorial residency at Oregon Contemporary. Homeschool is an institution that has been operating since 2015. The school aims at providing creative nourishment to encourage contemplation and appreciation of contemporary art. It can take many forms, including an art school or a distance learning platform. All iterations place a strong emphasis on slow-learning, individual relationships and diversity of thought.
Reis and abreu describe their professional synergy, non-deterministic approach to curation, and homeschool’s existence as a “space of sacred duty.” I understand that phrase to be a necessary cultivation of an educational culture that exists beyond the traditional tired, non-inclusionary, and for-profit learning environments. I gently place mine brain in cold rice Eight national and local artists from a variety of disciplines contributed work to the exhibition. As a whole, it reads as the visual embodiment of homeschool’s pedagogy, emphasizing the transmission of communal care and healing, through the lens of contemporary art.
There lies within every possible action, contemplation or relationship lies an eternal witness, who is without voyeurism always there to guide you through all your changes. Water is memory. When the air seethes, it reveals its archives. She gently places her brain in cold rice when the water walks.
Upon a first reading of this excerpt from the exhibition text, I registered “eternal” as “internal” thus briefly interpreting the statement not as a temporal alignment but as a more intrinsic action for viewer and artist alike. This is my interpretation of each decision’s line, each possible movement or connection, as an internal signifier that glides with the unpredictable flow of creative output.
In the multimedia assemblage, the eternal and the inner conflate Reclaiming Beatrice Studio Abioto and Intisar Abioto. Photos, newspaper clippings, inspirations, and a live installation of plants constitute the historically and emotionally poignant work named for the Portland civil rights activist Beatrice Morrow Cannady. The collaged images on the south wall of this gallery combine portraiture by Abioto with archival imagery from James S. Bell, an early Black Oregon/Portland photographer. The images were taken from early editions (1903-1938) of The Advocate and published by Cannady. Abioto’s figures appear with force and determination behind the lens – shown posing with bodies moving, reaching, or simply at rest – captured stoically and commandingly. It is possible to weave together contemporary photography with historical records from Black Oregon residents in order to create a successful and ambitious cross-generational narrative. Abioto honors the deep-rooted Black radical traditions and dreams exercised by Cannady and continues this work with the related project of purchasing and rematriating Cannady’s home in NE Portland. This work is centered in the gallery by the living focal point of the artwork, which is provided by the plants and foliage at the base.
Another photo offering is the work by Ibisazi Designers Nyabyo, a Kigali-based artist collective (IDN). The gallery’s regular hanging times are indicated throughout. Shadows of Ideas (2022) A series of works were commissioned for this exhibit. They show Kigali residents wearing and posing with functional arts: swathes or cloths, repurposed leaf, living, and found material. The exhibition materials describe the images as illustrating “the hidden and unshared thoughts of each living being.” Shadows of Ideas These are stills, silent and immobile, of live, improvisational and grand performances that were created in and with the Rwandan community where they were recorded. The collective’s improvisatory spirit is kept hidden by this deliberate quietening of movement. Gallery-goers see an individual, half-submerged under water, wearing a raft-like garment. Or another person upside down, their head in a vessel-shaped barrel with legs spread out above their torsos, two sculptural elements attached to each foot. If you approach the presented visuals with the understanding that they are intended to reveal as much as it makes curious, Shadows of Ideas They begin to exist in the liminality they create.
Guts, A yarn sculpture by Jasmine Nyende hangs from the back gallery ceiling and then falls to the ground in a soft coil. The layers of pink and purple appear to pulse and undulate, and the layers drape over each other in a way that is reminiscent of traditional weaving internal organ systems. Though the yarn appears thick and sturdy, my emotional response to this work instead calls to fragility, speaking to the spirit of one’s “insides” and feelings with the tendency to unravel, drip and transform.
Equally evocative of a move towards the transformative is artist Olivia McKayla Ross’s Lake of Stars A physical print publication and installation with the same name. The book is surrounded by two pieces obsidian, which are treasured for their protection and grounding properties. Lake of Stars It invites viewers into deep exploration of its poetic imagery to find the right compositional juncture to heal. The tangible book is an example of a personal desire, a need for freeform sentiments to naturally find their proper expression. The book’s underbelly is mirrored and digitally translated by Ross as they flip through its pages. Ross solidifies the resonance frequencies of this exhibition that balance the boundaries between private and shared self.
Oregon Contemporary’s poetic thread that connects all of its works is the desire to transcend their static limitations. I gently place mine brain in cold rice it evokes imagination and the potential of our present. The brain can become submerged in rice, just like a drowned telephone. These works are the antithesis of content saturation. The gallery is activated in response to each artist’s inquiry and consideration, giving the exhibition a sensory immediacy. I gently place mine brain in cold rice He draws from a thoughtful and generative contemplation, which stoutly integrates personal care with external craft.
***
I gently place mine brain in cold rice The exhibit is currently on display at Oregon Contemporary until January 8th. Oregon Contemporary is located on 8371 N Interstate Ave. It is open Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays between noon and 5 pm. The gallery is open from November 25 through 27, 26 and 27.