“At what point does the world unfold?”, 2022, Textiles, trim, sequins, beads, approximately 263 x 200 feet (total installation); Photos by Oz Gerard; Video Documentary and Documentation by Shira Evergreen.
(scroll down for description of the project)
Documentary video behind the scenes of making the work at Cornell. Filmed and edited by Shira Evergreen.
Video documentation of "At What Point Does the World Unfold?" - Filmed and edited by Shira Evergreen. Music by Lau Nau.
“At what point does the world unfold?” (2022) is a site specific installation that was created on the Arts Quad at Cornell University for the Cornell Biennial. I took the main elements of Goldwin Smith Hall’s Beaux Arts architecture and individually abstracted and fabricated them to scale - the 4 columns, the roof, 3 of the windows, and 3 of the arched doorways. The installation goes across part of the Arts Quad, partially tied to trees, and partially rooted into the ground. Each architectural element is made of brightly colored textiles, with printed floral patterns and ornamentation. The plant and flower images refer to local species in the landscape prior to Cornell’s presence.
The Arts Quad is a central hub at Cornell, housing the Arts and Sciences. It is also where Cornell was first built. The central building of the Arts Quad, Goldwin Smith Hall, is a Beaux Arts, neoclassical building, named after a former professor who has since been called out as holding racist and misogynist beliefs. As it currently stands, the visual orientation signals empire, whiteness, maleness. I am interested in deconstructing the authoritative architectural elements and transforming them into new fantastical forms that disrupt their lineage. What was here before Cornell? How does a space signal power? How does a space open up to us, and in turn open us up? How does color, porous materials, diagonal lines shift our understanding of who we are in relationship to our surroundings?
The title comes from a line from Sara Ahmed’s text “A Phenomenology of Whiteness” as she speaks about the phenomenological and racial relationship between bodies and their surroundings.