Melissa Smedley

(USA, 1961)

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The room is filled with contraptions made from wires, parachutes, and other found objects. In her videos the artist animates these objects and shows her concern with “devices we employ to gain control over nature.”

Curators: Mark Quint and Ernest Silva
Venue: Mission Brewery Plaza, San Diego
Organizer: Installation Gallery

Process

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Artists Nanette Yannuzzi Macias and Melissa Smedley collaborated on a two-part installation at El Sótano (an abandoned mop factory) in Tijuana and the San Diego Natural History Museum. Entitled Animal Vegetable Mineral: Comidas para los sombreros, the artists explained the installations as explorations of the rituals of communication. At El Sótano, the work consisted of a multitude of materials from a cotton loom, gourds, candles, and buckets, to a deerskin, birdcage, and eucalyptus tree stump, suggesting, according to the artists, a laboratory space that referenced the machine and ritual. The installation at the Natural History Museum acted as a response to this magical machine and incorporated video elements situating the materials in dialogues that suggested not yet considered relationships.

Curators: Gary Ghirardi and Mark Quint
Organizers: El Sótano and San Diego Natural History Museum
Venues: El Sótano, Tijuana, and San Diego Natural History Museum