XØ Projects Inc & The Old American Can Factory in association with Robert Mann Gallery
As month-long resident artists at the Old American Can Factory, Sayler/Morris will show new and in-progress pieces from Crystal Forest, a body of work that considers how to represent the Amazon in light of its multiplicity of refracted meanings.
The artist duo have used their residency to experiment with methods of displaying Prophecy of Butterflies, a large-scale animated video work originally commissioned by The Momentary at Crystal Bridges, as well as other video work from Crystal Forest. They will show an in-progress experimental short film titled The Amazon is Elsewhere and some new collages that will show at Robert Mann Gallery in the fall.
The Amazon, of course, is impossible to represent fully as it is the name of a vast region of diverse ecosystems, climates, people and other beings. The very word, “Amazon” acts on the imaginaries of myriad people and cultures throughout the world. For many, Amazon symbolizes “the lungs of the earth” or “nature” itself. However, for someone like Werner Herzog the Amazon is “obscene,” as he said in a famous interview. For the indigenous people of the region, many of whom have no separate word for jungle or forest, it is simply home.
Artist Giesla Gamper will be showing a new video work as part of this open studio evening. Painter Doug Argue will also have an open studio in adjoining space as part of the evening.