Category Archives: Current Exhibition

Post-Apocalyptic Worlds: The Science Behind How AI and Asexuality Could Function In Maryland and Their Social Implications

May 4, 2023 stamp Leave a comment

LIMBSHIFT from April 20th to May, 19th 2023 at The Stamp Gallery | University of Maryland, College Park | Written by James Cho

Laying on glass panels suspended from the ceiling of the Gallery, and plastered to the walls of the latter half of the Gallery are Dan Ortiz Leizman’s CONCEPTION.specimens_spells and DESIRE.propaganda. Through both CONCEPTION’s use of miscellaneous materials and DESIRE’s advertisements and explanations, Ortiz Leizman explores how AI like ChatGPT might envision a post-nuclear future where radiation from the Calvert Cliffs nuclear power plant has mutated humanity in such a way that we have the ability to reproduce asexually in DC and Maryland. Specifically, through either an agamous reproductive method of parthenogenesis, or self-fertilisation. Their work also brings forth an interesting parallel between the controversy about the use of AI in creating art, and the controversy about the use of gene-editing technologies like CRISPR that in the future could be used to create “designer babies”. But what does that mean, and how is AI related to the future of human reproduction and our perception of self?

Dan Ortiz Leizman, *DESIRE.propaganda*, 2023. DALL-E, prints on paper.

Well, in the case that the radiation somehow changes human anatomy to the point that it allows for the changes in our reproductive organs seen in Ortiz Leizman’s incredible work, human women would become obligate parthenogens, which in simple terms means that women would only be able to reproduce by themselves through oogenesis (a form of meiosis, specific to the development of female’s egg cells, the ovum). This raises some issues in terms of genetic variation since it’s essentially cloning yourself, but the social implications would importantly provide lesbian couples with the ability to have children of their own besides adoption or the use of sperm banks. For men post-radiation, this could mean developing hermaphroditic traits or the ability to reproduce through facultative parthenogenesis. This second method of asexual reproduction through parthenogenesis is one in which the individual can reproduce both asexually and sexually, making men gender fluid. With this hermaphroditism, there would be a stronger genetic variation to guard against diseases wiping out entire populations of “cloned” humans that came from obligate parthenogenesis (whether male or female). At the same time, it would shatter traditional perceptions of gender identity by way of forcing us to experience the world through both sexes. Gender norms and identities that are currently only shared within the LGBTQIA+ community would be expanded to a much wider part of society in Maryland, allowing for widespread acceptance and possible push for legislative or institutional assistance for health within the state. Issues such as the gender pay gap, traditional gender roles surrounding the nuclear family (jobs, at home, in public, etc.), Men who have sex with men (MSM) blood donation discrimination, trans representation as not just “transparent” but as trans parents as depicted in CONCEPTION, and so on would finally be put at the forefront of problems discussed statewide, and with enough of a push, nationwide.

Dan Ortiz Leizman, CONCEPTION.specimens_spells, 2023. Powdered milk, honey, cellophane, vellum silk, soap, paper, DALL-E, durer.ai, plexiglass. Here you can observe one of the paper sheets that repeats the word “TRANSPARENT” or “TRANS PARENT” depending on how you read the text.
Dan Ortiz Leizman, CONCEPTION.specimens_spells, 2023. Powdered milk, honey, cellophane, vellum silk, soap, paper, DALL-E, durer.ai, plexiglass. On the this sheet of plexiglass next to the “TRANSPARENT” sheet is the AI generated art of different embryos and the green whisps on top of them on the plexiglass representing sperm.
Dan Ortiz Leizman, CONCEPTION.specimens_spells, 2023. Powdered milk, honey, cellophane, vellum silk, soap, paper, DALL-E, durer.ai, plexiglass. This last photo shows the powdered milk-honey-soap representation of what an early embryo might look like under a coverslip in a laboratory!

However, there are still some downsides from the use of obligate parthenogenesis set up in CONCEPTION and DESIRE in regards to cloning. As seen in the 60s with the “Big Mike” or Gros Michel strand of bananas, cloning by itself (which is what obligate parthenogenesis boils down to) shows how it’s biggest advantage – that of mass reproduction of individuals along the same genetic line – is also it’s biggest downfall when getting sick. In the case of these bananas in the 60s, the tropical fungus Fusarium oxysporum f.sp. cubense (TR4) caused a widespread wilting of bananas by spreading a strain of Panama disease that nearly wiped out the entire population of this kind of banana. Replacing that kind of banana today is the Cavendish, which itself is beginning to suffer from the same issues due to it’s own lack of genetic variation. On top of that, issues with pure oogenesis instead of hermaphroditism pose a problem, since sperm cells are the ones that contain the genetic code for the formation of the placenta (and umbilical cord) which embryonic development needs to function. This is why (at least in the first few decades of Ortiz Leizman’s futuristic scenario), sperm would still be incredibly important to the development of the embryos seen in CONCEPTION, represented below as the green strands in CONCEPTION and the honey-milk spatters under the plexiglass. Knowing this, in the case that this scenario for humans that ChatGPT conceived occurs, would women and men face the same possible fate if faced with a disease (bacterial, fungal, or viral) that could kill us all like the bananas, despite hermaphroditism helping to reduce this risk? The answer to that question right now is yes, but as Ortiz Leizman’s work importantly discusses, AI and the advancement of technology may be what saves us if this futuristic scenario occurred.

Dan Ortiz Leizman, *DESIRE.propaganda*, 2023. DALL-E, prints on paper. On the left is a poster about the aftermath of the shift to asexual reproduction in humans and on the right is a poster about the monetisation of a baby formula for these designer babies.

As the other incredibly important factor that Ortiz Leizman discusses in the blurbs that one can read throughout the posters that make up DESIRE and in her use of AI like ChaptGPT, we might be able to find workarounds in the future for this issue. Current experimental gene editing technologies like CRISPR or at the very least use gene sequencing technologies like Genome Wide Association Studies (GWAS), WGS (Whole Genome Studies), or Sanger sequencing. Because despite them being collectively being quite expensive when looking for genetic issues for one person’s entire genome (Sanger sequencing being incredibly cheap for small sequences but expensive when trying to sequence the 3 billion nucleotides in our DNA and GWAS and WGS both being around $400-600+ on top of being much less accurate than Sanger sequencing), in the future as technology improves, the accuracy and cost of these technologies will become much more affordable. With CRISPR, we also still need humans to work alongside AI, but given how we know that CRISPR can artificially create humans due to the highly ethically controversial case of the Chinese CRISPER twins from 2018 who had their genomes supposedly edited when artificially conceived, we know that in theory humans in a century or so may be able to edit the entire genome of babies/their children to better survive. Resistance to genetic diseases, height, hair colour, and other physically-related traits (depending on the person’s inherited genes) could be fitted to whatever the parents want. Most importantly, we would (possibly) be able to circumnavigate the need for sperm by extracting and copying different samples of the genetic code needed for placental development. With this kind of technology, a world where humans become hermaphrodites or capable of asexual reproduction would be much safer (as it could incorporate the DNA of both parents, avoiding the banana cloning issue), though the concept of the “designer baby” today through AI or human experimentation is one of the biggest ethical dilemmas that we face. Similar to the way that Ortiz Leizman describes CONCEPTION’s use of plexiglass suspended over the viewer as a parallel to being under a microscope, the thought of designing or editing human babies in a lab is incredibly dangerous as many equate it to playing god. This is on top of possibly creating new social inequalities between those who can afford the designing process and those who cannot, which can be reflected in Ortiz Leizman’s baby formula poster, where this development is monetised.

When talking about a possible scenario in the future decades like in Ortiz Leizman’s works where these techniques and CRISPR which seem grim from DESIRE’s ominous propaganda, there truly is hope behind it. In a similar way to how researchers like Henry Jenkins see newer generations of people use media and the internet to create hypothetical scenarios or entire worlds to make functioning societies and work backwards to make them a reality, Ortiz Leizman has used AI to create artwork that represents a magnificent starting point to work on into the future as we learn to become more accepting of each other, using science to support such endeavours.

The Artistic Body

May 2, 2023 stamp Leave a comment

LIMBSHIFT from April 20 to May 19, 2023 at The Stamp Gallery | University of Maryland, College Park | Written by Oliver Foley

Art is transformation. At the most basic level, a work of art transforms materials from their raw forms into something new and beautiful. Over the course of these physical changes, the artwork undergoes intangible mutations, as well: the artist imbues thoughts, feelings, and meanings into the object. Through this alchemical process, the artist alters not only the physical work, but themselves. In LIMBSHIFT, an exhibition rife with parallelisms between body and artwork, we see into the heart of these transformations.

This process of material and personal transformation is especially visible in Kenneth Hilker’s works “Increments of Time” and “Emotion Without Language.” Both pieces are large works of wood and steel, each constructed out of repurposed materials from various on-campus sources. For Hilker, the artistic process begins not with a concrete thought or idea, but a “feeling, or connection to the material.” From the very beginning, a sense of self is injected into the selection and collection of the scrap metals and woods. Plucked from their refuse piles, the objects begin their metamorphosis. The medium moves Hilker, inspiring Hilker to inscribe his own feelings onto the medium.

The parallels between transformation of self and transformation of substance in Hilker’s work move beyond symbolic: the cooperation between self and art manifests in the work tangibly. “Increments of Time” was the first work in LIMBSHIFT that caught my eye. The eye-catching oceanic blues and burnt blacks combined with its large scale make it hard to miss. As the name might suggest, the piece itself represents a process through time. “I started with the left side, and you can kind of tell because it opens up to the right,” said Hilker about this piece. The form of the artwork evolved as Hilker’s perspective evolved. Like a relationship between two people, the artwork and artist transform each other through the course of the artistic process. From left to right, as “Increments of Time” develops from tightly-joined to more spacious and organic, we can see the art-artist relationship bloom.

Close-up of *Increments of Time,* Kenneth Hilker, 2023

The self is a fluid, fluctuating thing. “Emotion Without Language,” in particular, is a tangible artifact of the volatile nature of the self. In fact, “Emotion Without Language was actually a different piece up until about a week ago, when [Hilker] took a pry bar to it and pried it apart.” Hilker “just didn’t relate to it” anymore, a simple feeling which reflects both personal changes within Hilker and the unpredictable course of the art-artist relationship. Sometimes you need to cut a piece down with a bandsaw to relate to it; Hilker’s unafraid approach to connecting with his work is central to the ideological and physical beauty of the pieces.

An artist’s body of work is an extension of their organic body. As materials become art, they are transformed, too, into the artist. Few things are more uniquely human than the ability to infuse the self into the inert, and few artists are more effective at displaying this reciprocal process than Kenneth Hilker.

All quotes are sourced from a conversation between the author and Kenneth Hilker.

Current Exhibition, Top Picks!

The folding up of UNFOLD: The Art of Clothing

March 29, 2023 stamp Leave a comment

UNFOLD from January 30 to April 1, 2023 at The Stamp Gallery | University of Maryland, College Park | Written by Noa Nelson

Clothing has played an important role throughout history. Think of the Black Panther movement easily identified by their leather jackets and berets. Maybe you remember seeing AOC’s “Tax the Rich” dress at the Met Gala in 2021. Or perhaps hats and shirts endorsing specific political parties or leaders.

Fashion can traditionally be used by people to fit in with a group, while usually also defining hierarchy and social structures. In the Stamp Gallery’s current exhibit, UNFOLD, clothing is also used to express individual beliefs.

The clothes that we wear have deep underlying meanings beyond what is visible in plain sight. Our clothes speak louder than words. Clothing can be a reflection of social changes in our society. The work in UNFOLD brings overlapping perspectives about the ways in which our clothes display or voice a message. Clothing is not only about fashion or what is aesthetically pleasing. The art on view encourages visitors to ask themselves what the clothing they wear means to them. How does something seemingly meaningless carry lots of weight?

Elliot Doughtie, *Sock Pile 3 (Laundry Day Dubuffet series)*, 2022.

Elliot Doughtie’s sock sculptures from the Laundry Day Dubuffet series play into the idea of using clothing as a means to fit in with the larger group. The plaster casts of red-stripe athletic socks are strong, muscular, and solid. They are repeated, grouped together, and intertwined with one another. With their repetition and stiffness, they speak about group identity regarding gender performance masculinity. Generally worn by men, these vintage-inspired socks give off an inherent masculine energy. They jog our memory of sweaty gym days in middle school. The Sock Pile sculptures and Doughtie’s drawing of socks titled Group Activity feature an overwhelming number of socks. They show the socks enveloping each other, making it hard to pick them apart from one another. It is difficult to distinguish where one sock ends and begins. The socks in the middle are barely visible to the eye. This draws into the idea of group identity and performance. There is strength in numbers but no individuality or space for people to pave their own path within a group.

Alongside Group Activity is another drawing by Doughtie of one singular sock entitled Solo. This lonesome sock reminds the viewer that there is an advantage in being in a group. Socks are meant to be in a pair and when we lose that one sock while doing laundry our once powerful pair of socks now becomes useless. Doughtie speaks about the power and danger of group identity, but also the importance of being a part of something larger and the ineffectiveness of complete solitude and lonesome behavior.

HH Hiaasen, *Ventilated Workwear: GRIDsuit*, 2016.

On the other hand, HH Hiaasen’s Ventilated Workwear seems to be representing the beliefs that we hold as individuals. The coveralls are from Hiaasen’s line of “anti-uniforms.” Simply by reading the name we can already get a sense of the message that Hiaasen wants us to walk away with. Uniforms link us to a group identity. Uniforms can give us a sense of belonging but also ask us to conform to the desires and needs of the group at large. Uniforms have the power of making us one of the many. The “ventilated” protective wear that Hiaasen has created directly fights the idea of a uniform. Their pieces force us to question the forms of clothing that we put on our bodies to guard ourselves. They do this by using conventional articles of protective wear such as coveralls, goggles, gloves, and masks with holes cut out in them. The holes in the coveralls work to expose ourselves and make us stand out as individuals. These forms of protection symbolize the ways in which we mistakenly believe that we are protecting ourselves, but also how we test the limits to form our own identities.

So the next time you put on any article of clothing, ask yourself what is it about this shirt that I identify with or how do these pants represent my beliefs? How can I use a piece of clothing as an instrument for change? Allow your entire outfit to speak words for itself and to speak words for you.

Current Exhibition, Top Picks!

Garment Identity

March 16, 2023 stamp Leave a comment

UNFOLD from January 30 to April 1, 2023 at The Stamp Gallery | University of Maryland, College Park | Written by Oliver Foley

Every day, before you enter the public eye, you select an outfit. Whether by instinct, intentionality, or necessity, you make a choice. Sometimes, you just throw on what is most comfortable. Other times, you carefully craft your outward appearance. But no matter how you choose, the clothes you wear shape your identity for that day. UNFOLD, the show currently on view at Stamp Gallery, explores how the garments we choose for ourselves can be used as a tool to modulate identity. Four different artists provide four different takes on how our clothes define us. Through these four stories, the viewer learns, chapter by chapter, how essential clothing is to our own humanity. UNFOLD asks the viewer “What function do your clothes serve?” To help the viewer find their truth, Elliot Doughtie, HH Hiaasen, Mojdeh Rezaeipour, and Hoesy Corona each bring their own answer to the table.

Although clothes may not constitute an entire identity, everyone is evaluated by their attire, whether they like it or not. In order to control the external perception of one’s self, one must fashion their outfit like a tool. The purpose of this tool? To take what is inside and make it visible. Our internal lives are locked inside of our minds, and only through outward expression do we free it from the confines of our psyche. Our choice of garments allows us to broadcast this internal life to anyone and everyone. In a way, this is the same role that art plays in our society. We use art to convey thoughts and feelings which otherwise would necessitate intimate conversation. In UNFOLD, Elliot Doughtie calls attention to the group mentality of performative masculinity through the repeated imagery of the athletic sock. The inadequacy of the unpaired sock takes the intimacy of hushed discussions and the unspoken hang-ups of inner life and puts it on display. The clothes we wear expose our insecurities as loudly as they champion our prides. Garments and undergarments are not simply tools to display what we want to be seen, but to veil what we want to hide. Sometimes, caught up in our performance, we are betrayed by our outfits.

The outward expression of identity can also trap the true self within. The uniform, mandatory and standardized by definition, connects the individual to the system, the greater organism. These outfits serve as a label of function, identifying the wearer by their use as a tool, concealing the human underneath. The bus driver, fast-food employee, metalworker, and mechanic may wear the garments of their function, but they are far more than a cog. HH Hiaasen acknowledges and refutes the role of clothing as a “reducer” of identity in their series “Ventilated Workwear.” Cut-out grids puncture through the outfits, opening the uniform to reveal the person underneath. Through these modifications, Hiaasen helps the individual survive their time as a uniform.

HH Hiaasen, *Ventilated Workwear: GRIDgloves*, 2019

The judgmental perception of our appearance is inescapable, and our clothing is one of the few tools we have to control our interactions with strangers. In order for our garments to convey our true identity, rather than a false one, choice is necessary. Yet, in Iran, this mediation is enforced. Mojdeh Rezaeipour’s untitled works in UNFOLD draw from the ongoing movement in Iran to free the women of the nation from the restrictive law regarding dress. These clothing laws serve as a symbolically rich focal point in the movement’s battle against the oppressive policies of the authoritarian regime as a whole. Covering oneself is a common religious practice in Islam, but clothing turns from a tool into a weapon when it is forced onto others. Rezaeipour’s artworks demonstrate the need for the autonomy which transforms clothes from a destroyer of identity into a blooming flower of individual expression.

It is often said that one’s actions define one’s character. If we were to apply this standard to humanity as a whole, we are beyond unforgivable. Even ignoring our actions towards one another, the extent to which we have ravaged our home planet is tremendous. Our species is unavoidably defined by our treatment of the Earth. The final chapter in UNFOLD’s exploration into garment identity is Hoesy Corona’s “Climate Ponchos.” Although most fashion is designed to mediate the reception of our identity, Corona’s “Climate Ponchos” mediate our identity with nature itself. The poncho is a tool to protect against the elements, and in that way it is a communicator between the individual and the natural world. This earth which we have destroyed now rejects us through natural disasters of our own creation. There is little that our clothing can say or broadcast to walk back these transgressions, but acknowledging our failures and wrongdoings is one step towards inspiring change. By wearing clothing which champions the environment, we interlink our own identity with our identity as a planet. Strengthening this bond on an individual level is an important step towards repairing our relationship with the Earth. Corona uses the connective qualities of clothing to bring awareness to our part in the greater organism of the Earth.

The way we perceive others, the way we perceive ourselves, and even the way that we guide our actions is brought about by that seemingly small choice we make every day before we leave our room. For better or for worse, our clothing makes us human.

UNFOLD will be on view in The Stamp Gallery at the University of Maryland, College Park from January 30 through April 1, 2023.

Current Exhibition, Explore

Unfolding Ventilated Workwear by HH Hiaasen

March 7, 2023 stamp Leave a comment

UNFOLD from January 30 to April 1, 2023 at The Stamp Gallery | University of Maryland, College Park | Written by Ellen Zhang

In the Stamp Gallery’s current exhibition UNFOLD, HH Hiaasen has graced the walls with their collection of Ventilated Workwear. For the first time, these uniforms have been displayed off the body and, instead, on two peg boards typically found in toolsheds. Simultaneously, the displayed Tyvek suit, coveralls, gloves, ear plugs, face mask, and goggles have transformed from “garments” to “tools.” By doing so, Hiaasen opens a new door for their audience to observe and ponder their art.

When looking at Hiaasen’s artwork, some interesting observations can be made. Rather than imitating the appearance of tools, Hiaasen uses actual objects typically found in a toolshed. By following a uniform grid pattern, Hiaasen has hand-cut most pieces, which leaves little “garment” left. Each garment is then traced with a black outline, containing each object in its own space. As Hiaasen explains, the rectangular cut-outs also represent a “standardized mode of containment.” Despite the underlying meaning behind the pattern of choice, there is less containing and more opening. Through those openings, the audience gets a greater view of the pegboard, which enforces how these garments should be explicated as tools. Since most of the pieces on display were created between 2016 and 2019, the edges of the cutouts have also become frayed. This can be best seen in the denim GRIDsuit. Since the project’s inception in 2018, the GRIDsuits have been worn for display, leading to apparent wear and tear. Microthreads of denim poke out from all directions, marring the appearance of the standardized rectangles.

HH Hiaasen, Ventilated Workwear: GRIDsuit, 2018. Hand-cut coveralls.

Hiaasen’s deliberate usage of empty space, pattern, and time tie into a broader message of their own “experiment in queer survival.” Due to the rectangular cut-outs, the tools lose their prescribed purpose of protecting the wearer. Take the GRIDgoggles for example. What is supposed to be a tool that protects the eyes becomes a mere ornament that exposes the wearer to surrounding danger. In other words, when tools deviate from their conventional purpose, the wearer feels vulnerable. While not explicitly expressed by the artist or the artwork, this could be indicative of how dangerous conformity is. Conventional definitions of gender and sexual orientation are most often binary and straight. This singles out individuals who don’t identify with these conventions, making them feel defenseless to social isolation, discrimination, and much more. As seen in the wear and tear of the GRIDsuits, time plays an important role in exacerbating this issue. As conformity continues to draw its power from numbers, the exposure to these encircling risks is heightened.

Garments that serve as protective gear can also “contain” the wearer. As garments diminish, there is greater visibility for the wearer. This effect could also enable the wearer to better express themselves. However, the separation between self and other is still stark. As the black outline of each piece suggests, the wearer is subject to their own space. Even as clothing loses its purpose of protecting or containing, the isolation of the wearer remains stagnant as ever.

What’s interesting is the vehicle HH Hiaasen has chosen to embody this message. By displaying the garments as tools in a toolshed, Hiaasen’s work is able to express a dual purpose of protecting and containing. Rather than using garments as a whole, Hiaasen takes a specific type of clothing—protective gear—to convey their message.

Hiaasen’s work delves into the connection between self and other. In exploring this connection, their work touches on conformity and queerness, and how these two subjects interact with each other. As a result, Hiaasen has truly explored the possibility of garments beyond their conventional manner, thus unfolding the layers of meaning we would have never imagined.

UNFOLD will be on view in The Stamp Gallery at the University of Maryland, College Park from January 30 through April 1, 2023. For more information on HH Hiaasen and their work, visit https://www.studio-hh.com/HH.

Current Exhibition

Binary Socks

February 27, 2023 stamp Leave a comment

UNFOLD from January 30 to April 1, 2023 at The Stamp Gallery | University of Maryland, College Park | Written by Isabella Chilcoat

I first encountered artist Elliot Doughtie’s work last November of 2022 during my Contemporary Art Purchasing Program cohort’s visit to his studio in Baltimore City. We arrived early in the morning (in a university van) for a full day of gallery and studio visits, and Doughtie was first on the docket. He greeted us outside of Area 405, the historic Baltimore warehouse that houses a number of working artists’ studios and emits the familiar musk that so many historic properties possess after sheltering decades of dust from the bustle of busy humans. Surrounded by the energies of creatives past and present, my team members and I were eager to explore the brick-walled universe of expression and curiosity.

Enter Doughtie’s studio. The floors are gray wooden boards met by drywall panels in between exposed brick. The drywall patches are covered in graph paper sketches of concepts, ideas, and the two sock drawings that now hang in the Stamp Gallery as part of the group exhibition UNFOLD. There are two rooms, one main studio space testing the display of sculpture and installations followed by a narrow hallway to a smaller workspace. Throughout the studio are socks. Not real socks, but heavy, brittle sculptures and mock-ups capturing the exact texture of fabric created through an all but easy process of pouring plaster into molds cast from bulk-buys of generic gym socks. Inside the smaller workspace room resides a circular saw, molds, and other scattered tools. Imagine a public education shop class room, then make it half the size, then fill it with various sizes of plaster fragments, pipe, and little empty replica bottles of Testosterone.

Just as the plaster fragments spread across the floor of the studio, Doughtie’s finished sock sculptures rest on the wooden floors in the Gallery. What most visitors do not know is that they weigh around eighty pounds, can shatter, and are not, in fact, real socks. The closest element they bear to the fabric socks used to create their molds is the red striped detail above the ankle. The red dye in the original sock transferred to the absorbent plaster during casting. An expert dupe, these conceptual socks would likely crush under the weight of a foot, which is what makes them so fantastic as works of art! They subvert any ordinary conception people hold about socks; Doughtie’s are not the resilient little things we banish to hampers, closet floors, or washing machines every evening. Instead the art socks on the floor are metaphors for the crushing weight of our society’s masculine stereotypes.

Further exemplified in the diptych drawings of socks on the gallery’s first wall, the illustrations oppose each other by contrasting a picture of many socks crowded together with a picture of just one sock in isolation. Despite what initially feels like a playful subject, the illustration with only one sock is chillingly lonely. The single sock floats at the bottom of its page as if staring at the crowd of intertwining socks separated by two frames. Socks come in pairs, like binaries, and can only fulfill their prescribed purpose if they are together. The idea of losing one sock from a pair likely raises neck hairs for anyone who has scoured a house in search of that elusive piece of polyester-blend hosiery. It also highlights the devastating pressures to conform to a stereotype or standardized identity for belonging. Focusing on a single, separated sock from the cluster really spotlights the metaphor for stereotypical masculinity and exposes its weaknesses beyond the safety of sameness. These all-but-essential unspoken codes dictating binary gender expression inflict droves of problems, and Doughtie’s single sock captures some of the feelings associated with rejecting the standard.

The lonely sock suggests dual ideas that the pressure of assimilation is crushing, and, ironically, so is the isolation. I am grateful for the physical space in between the picture frames, however, because I needed it to remind me about the gray area. Our world is frequently so suffocatingly black and white, but life is much more complex and colorful beyond the binary.

Elliot Doughtie’s work is included in UNFOLD at The Stamp Gallery of the University of Maryland, College Park, from January 30 – April 1, 2023.

For more information on Elliot Doughtie, visit https://elliotdoughtie.com/ .

For more information on Unfold and related events, visit https://stamp.umd.edu/centers/stamp_gallery

Current Exhibition, Top Picks!, Uncategorized

Climate Ponchos: The Human-Environment Binary

February 23, 2023 stamp Leave a comment

UNFOLD from January 30 to April 1, 2023 at The Stamp Gallery | University of Maryland, College Park | Written by James Cho

Draped over hangers suspended from the Stamp Gallery’s ceiling, Hoesy Corona’s Climate Ponchos display multiple scenes of different biomes across the Earth. Made from digital and hand-cut collages on leatherette, vinyl, and silk jersey fabric, the collective works in the series Climate Ponchos explores the relationships between humans and their environments—specifically, how our presence often affects ecosystems within them, calling for humans to act as stewards of our environment instead of our current path that claims ownership of the world we live in. Corona describes the figures depicted on the ponchos as “the archetypal ‘traveler,’ [with] the subjects portrayed while in unilateral transition, wearing backpacks and hats, carrying suitcases and holding children.” These travelers and the surrounding biomes—whether it be plains, mountains, or fields—serve to collectively display immigration instigated by the degradation of nature, emphasizing how climate change affects both nature and humans alike, giving us all the more reason to help prevent global warming and work with nature instead of against it. On the other side of the ponchos, the figures reappear as anonymous blue and orange silhouettes, representations of a collective of immigrants from around the world, creating a sense of wonder as they traverse the diverse multicolored foliage around them and march towards a new home.

Gardens by the Bay, *A Unique Experience (OCBC Skyway, SuperTree Grove)*, 2022

In my own experience growing up as an immigrant across different countries, I can relate to Corona’s message, especially from living in Singapore, a country that wants to become a “City in Nature” by 2030 as part of their Singapore Green plan. Unlike many modernized cities, Singapore itself is surrounded by natural rainforests often right next to residential areas, and has places like the Botanic Gardens which preserve the island’s natural beauty, and the Gardens by the Bay’s famous Super Tree ecosystems. Acting as their own ecosystems and powered by solar energy, which are also used for music shows at night, these trees are a prime example of the stewardship of nature that Corona is calling for. Through these efforts, alongside Singapore’s diverse population of immigrants from around the world, Corona’s advocacy for greater care toward the land and all of its inhabitants becomes a reality and a guiding principle. Where instead of the multi-colored floral patterns resembling comic book or manga-like anger marks that animated characters sport when angered – used here on top of the plant life, perhaps to symbolize its discontent with humans’ actions – hearts or another symbol take their place, as an indication of the naturalization of the world. Much in the same way that Singapore as a city forms a sense of unity between humans and the tropical ecosphere that coexist on the island. In essence, the Gardens by the Bay represent the first step toward fashioning a human-made world that allows for harmony between human and non-human life. Though like any other city Singapore may not be in perfect symbiosis across the country, Singapore still acts as a near-perfect example of the kind of stewardship and respect for nature that Corona is trying to emphasize, which in turn nurtures human lives as well.

Swan Lake at Singapore Botanic Gardens, 2023

As a collective from all over Asia and the world, citizens in Singapore share in the anonymity of the human subjects in the Climate Ponchos as well. Millions of people from all walks of life live or pass through Singapore. Whether it be because of environmental degradation like in Climate Ponchos, political or social instability, or other reasons, Singapore acts a cultural hub of stability, where immigrants might either stay because of the environmental and cultural harmony that exists there, or use as a place to collect themselves and all that they carry with them from their country of origin. Immigrants like the camouflaged individuals and blue and orange-outlined humans from both sides of the ponchos can rest from carrying their bags, suitcases, and children, and blossom like the camouflaged humans’ flowery hair. No matter what kind of dress they wear, everyone can express themselves and take a break from moving across different environments. And just like how ponchos themselves physically embody this immigration from different parts of the world, Climate Ponchos serves as a reflection of the experiences of immigration depicted on them, as a reflection of human to environment relationships throughout our lives and from our native environments.

Singapore not only represents a first step towards human-to-non-human harmony, but also reflects the larger message of human-to-human connections that the current UNFOLD exhibit strives to convey to visitors. As we address issues like climate change, we must also turn our attention to improving LGBTQIA, racial, gender, and ethnic harmony, and other socio-political causes for immigration that hinder our inter-human relationships.

Current Exhibition

The Hijab Untitled and Unfolded: A Dual Symbol of Empowerment and Oppression

February 13, 2023 stamp Leave a comment

UNFOLD from January 30 to April 1, 2023 at The Stamp Gallery | University of Maryland, College Park | Written by Reshma Jasmin

According to the curatorial statement for the Stamp Gallery’s current exhibition, UNFOLD, the artwork on view explores the function of clothing to “mediate connections between public and private, human and non-human, self and other” in a way that “[complicates] these binaries.” This power of clothing is readily apparent in the work of Hoesy Corona, Elliot Doughtie, and HH Hiaasen. These three artists use modified clothing or sculptures of clothing as a medium to comment on prevalent issues, social phenomena, and injustice; their work is a clear “unfolding” of clothes.

But UNFOLD houses another artist’s work: Untitled (۱۴۰۱ Series) by Mojdeh Rezaeipour. Rezaeipour’s work differs from the work of the other artists in the exhibit as her individual pyrographic collages on wood contain no textile work or sculpture of textile. The series of panels is titled ۱۴۰۱, or “1401,” which likely stands for the year 2022 according to the Persian calendar. This is likely because the content of her work focuses on the protests in Iran which began in 2022.

In Iran, the government requires that women cover their hair with a hijab. In September, a young Kurdish woman named Jina (Mahsa) Amini was murdered by Iranian police for failing to comply with this gendered law. In response, a series of feminist protests were mobilized by Iranian women in and outside of Iran. Four out of eight of Rezaeipour’s pieces on display at the Stamp Gallery involve women holding their fists up. The raised fist is used in a lot of movements and protests, notably in Black Lives Matter and Black Power movements, but also historically in socialist, feminist, anti-fascist, etc. demonstrations and protests. The nineteenth-century French artist Honoré Daumier shows a man with a raised fist in the c. 1848 painting The Insurrection, which is commonly thought of as the first documented depiction of the raised fist as a symbol of resistance and rebellion. The icon of a raised fist represents resistance, solidarity, and power— all aspects of the ongoing protests in Iran that Rezaeipour highlights in her series.

Mojdeh Rezaeipour, *Untitled (*۱۴۰۱ *Series)*, 2022-23

In conversation, Rezaeipour pointed out the context of the scenes in some of her pieces. What I thought were pretty shades of blue and yellow that made the black and white grainy image of a woman rock-climbing stand out was actually a poignant moment of civil disobedience. In October, Elnaz Rekabi represented Iran in a climbing competition without her hijab, breaking Iran’s strict law. According to IranWire, Rekabi’s brother was held hostage by the Iranian government, so she was forced to apologize for her lack of hijab during her climb, and afterwards her family home was destroyed.

Rezaeipour moved on to describe the significance of the hijab as a dual symbol of freedom and oppression. In one of the two pieces below, Rezaeipour depicts two women, one with a chador (full-body and head covering garments) and one with uncovered hair and three-quarter sleeves, holding their enjoined hands up in front of the Iranian flag (left). Rezaeipour asserts that there is solidarity between women, that feminism is the empowerment of the choice to wear a hijab or not, and that the protests in Iran were a demonstration of said solidarity. In the other panel on the right, a woman with uncovered hair stands with a hijab in her hands in front of the historic Azadi Tower, also known as the Freedom Tower, which is located in Tehran, Iran. When the woman raises the currently controversial piece of clothing to the Freedom Tower, she is actively taking her right to choose; the tower in the background stands as evidence that as an Iranian, regardless of law, it is fundamentally her freedom to choose what to do with her hijab.

Rezaeipour focuses on a piece of clothing that traditionally speaks to faithfulness of women. When clothing, something so close to the body, holds such spiritual significance, it becomes sacred. As a sacred cloth that speaks to the wearer’s personal experience of faith, modern Muslim women wear the hijab to feel empowered by their religion. When covering of hair is made mandatory, the hijab is weaponized to oppress women, an act that is even sacrilegious by virtue of disrupting a woman’s choice to express her faith freely and sincerely. In Rezaeipour’s Untitled (۱۴۰۱ Series), it is seared into wood that when it is a free choice, the sanctity of the hijab remains intact.

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A Reflection to Remember: Teach Me How to Love This World

November 22, 2022 stamp Leave a comment

Teach Me How to Love This World from October 19 to December 10, 2022 at The Stamp Gallery | University of Maryland, College Park | Written by Ellen Zhang

Bold red streaks, ominous ringing, whirrings of rotating projector shutters… each piece in Teach Me How to Love This World plays an integral part in illustrating a past, present, and future world grappling with violence and peace. What I like about Kei Ito’s work is that it’s direct and straightforward without undermining its complexities. As a viewer, I am amazed by how he has balanced artistic choices, abstract themes (like the meaning of peace), and the factuality of the impacts of nuclear war. Together, these three elements create the necessary experience of being caught off guard that precedes a stage of reflection.

Stepping foot into this exhibition for the very first time, the piece that caught my attention was Teach Me How to Love This World: Sacrifice. The immediate appearance of a blood-red peace sign dripping down the canvas is jarring, intimidating, and contradicting. The perception of tranquility, from the peace symbol, is intruded by the blood-red color, enhancing Ito’s message that peace doesn’t come without fatal sacrifice. Ito reflects the destructive nature of war weapons through artistic choices that don’t sugarcoat and, instead, speak volumes on how nuclear war is a source of fear and intimidation. For those that are conflict-avoidant like me, an initial glimpse is enough to instill a sense of trepidation and uneasiness.

Kei Ito, *Teach Me How to Love This World: Sacrifice*, 2022. Unprimed canvas, spray paint, print on aluminum dibond, 36x48x3 in.

The question of “whose peace, whose sacrifice” splattered across the top and bottom of the canvas adds to the power of the piece. It’s a transparent move that introduces perplexing questions between humanity and war, unlike the sanitized version we often get from the mainstream media. By proposing the question of “whose peace, whose sacrifice,” Ito also eases the viewer into a stage of reflection: Who are the victims of nuclear war? Who benefits from it? Is there even a clear distinction between the two or are we all unknowing victims of nuclear war? While I haven’t found the answers to these questions, I appreciate how Ito’s work is centralized in questions rather than statements. Nothing is definitive and, perhaps, this is on purpose. Ito breaks the stigma of reflecting on war by encouraging us, the viewers, to weigh on an integral theme of conflict: someone’s peace is brought through someone else’s suffering. During Ito’s artist talk, he even encouraged his audience to consider everyday life through the lens of sacrifice, war, and peace. For example, he mentioned how fast fashion is one of many suppressed examples of those benefiting from another’s exploitation.

Situated in the center of the canvas is an inverted photograph of a goat receiving a blood transfusion by three masked doctors. Here, Ito adds additional layers of identity, fact, and questioning. The presence of a goat pays homage to the significance of animals ingrained in Japanese culture. At the same time, the photograph is rooted in factual evidence that depicts the devastating effects of atomic bomb testing. The original photograph was taken by George Skadding in 1947 and captures the moment when a goat, exposed to radiation from an A-bomb test on Bikini Atoll Island, receives a blood transfusion as it lies strapped to a surgical table at the Bethesda Naval Medical Research Institute, MD. Reflecting on the photo with its historical backdrop in mind subjects the viewer to numerous questions: Why did Ito choose a historical moment that took place in Maryland? Why is the photograph placed where it is? Why is it inverted? With no answers in plain sight, we are encouraged to ponder the artistic choices Ito has made. To me, Teach Me How to Love This World: Sacrifice is a piece that embodies reflection. And quite literally, the contents on the canvas are mirrored, portraying the interdependent relationship between those who enjoy peace and those who sacrifice. At the same time, the viewers can reflect on how power and politics determine who is impacted by war. The photograph alone is a testament to how some, if not all, can have their peace stripped from them at any given moment and with no say at all.

Despite the way Ito explores the dichotomy between peace and war, his exhibition is certainly not despairing in nature. By balancing the factual and the abstract, he breaks the silence on taboo subjects and builds fruitful conversations, open to anyone regardless of their background, belief systems, and ideas. Ito brings a sense of vulnerability into the gallery, graciously inviting us to explore, and prompting reflections to remember.

Teach Me How to Love This World: Kei Ito will be on view in The Stamp Gallery at the University of Maryland, College Park from October 19 through December 10, 2022. For more information on Kei Ito and his work, visit http://www.kei-ito.com/.

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Teach Me How to Love Myself

November 15, 2022 stamp Leave a comment

Teach Me How to Love This World from October 19 to December 10, 2022 at The Stamp Gallery | University of Maryland, College Park | Written by Isabella Chilcoat

My typical approach to articulating each exhibition by the Stamp Gallery over the past year and a half has involved a level of formal artistic analysis and critique. However Teach Me How to Love This World: Kei Ito plucked a chord in my being that I feel calls for a more intimate reading. Ito’s current solo exhibition manifests not only a physical presence, but also a profound psychological phenomenon of deep empathy and contemplation. His works plunge my own mind into an abyss of chilling curiosity – they cast a red-hued light of extrospection on my own inner tribulations. Themes of generational trauma, visible and invisible wounds, violence, destruction, rebirth, and peace radiate from the six works on view, and each piece contains a piercing capacity to connect its viewer with a larger history surrounding them. Ito’s work certainly has prompted me to deepen my inward self-exploration as it connects to generational wounds that bleed into my present.

Aptly titled, Into the Abyss (2022), a unique C-Print of sunlight developed film, hangs on the Gallery’s entrance wall, a rectangular plate of aluminum dibond emblazoned with blood-red word pairings against its smooth black surface. The text couples a pronoun and a noun, pronoun + noun, pronoun + noun, pronoun + noun… endlessly in columns that eventually obscure toward the bottom. These groupings compose a solemn poetry to ponder while sojourning through and beyond the gallery walls with phrases pertaining to: “their + war,” “his + war,” “his + weapons,” “your + weapons,” “your + peace.” With a repetition that references an obsessive compulsive sequence of words, Into the Abyss forces me to recall my own journey through healing the consequences of generational trauma.

Kei Ito, *Into the Abyss*, 2022. Unique C-Print film mounted on aluminum dibond, laminate, 40x32x1 in.

Though different circumstances, Ito’s encapsulation of heirloom agony, or legacies of passed down emotional damages, is something that resonates in a myriad of settings yet lacks the recognition and understanding it deserves. I particularly love this print because it echoes a period in my early childhood where I would repeat a list of the same, completely arbitrary “safe” phrases in instances of high anxiety in a set numerical quantity. As a child the specific recitation of my “safe” words calmed my autonomic nervous system as an act of defense in a situation in which I felt my safety or autonomy was compromised. In retrospect of more than fifteen years (and with professionally guided coping strategies) I can still remember my “safe” phrases – no longer with a feeling of desperate relief, but a feeling of grief for a waning childhood of which I had little concept at the time and a stronger desire to console my child self and restore a sense of security. Ito’s phrases, while clearly intentionally correlated, illustrate the sequences of inner thoughts in an ordered but increasingly blurry image synonymous with memory. Memories of my “safe” words, survival mechanisms, and certain traumatic instances of my life flicker through my mind like an orderly reel of film or text until the clarity vanishes in a manner similar to the visual qualities of Into the Abyss and other works in the Stamp Gallery, including a dual Kodak slide projection piece titled Teach Me How to Love This World (2022), in which the same pronoun + noun couples project on the wall.

Kei Ito, *Teach Me How to Love This World*, 2022. 35mm slide, Kodak carousel projectors.

Ito’s exhibition has offered a narrative and a solidarity to trauma by employing the acute dichotomy between war and peace. His work in the gallery also translates the severity of war and of peace individually. If I relate these concepts to my own journey with mental health I can visualize how my mind and my body have at times existed at war with one another, both seeking the same peace from trauma, but disconnected. The lack of harmony enables a cascade of conflict, confusion, and fear. Being at war with the self or warring (in survival mode) against a harmful situation unfolds in a complex manner, especially if that trauma is carried through multiple generations. The devastations of war can bare themselves physically, but often, as the scars fade, the invisible wounds, emotional traumas, anxiety, trauma-induced ADHD, PTSD, and cPTSD rage more severely. The sinister aftermath of battle (both literal and metaphorical), when the dust has settled, too often leaves the survivor’s remaining injuries unrecognized, unfinished, on the inside, and sometimes resurfacing as panic attacks, racing heart rates, an urge to flee—the list goes on. There is seldom peace immediately after a trauma. Without proper time and care for wounds to heal, injuries can fester and compound. War and peace are not black and white; the space between is easier to leave hidden, but that gray space is also the only ground for true healing. The path to peace can take generations, making “peace” no easy feat. Accordingly, some of the world’s best efforts at “keeping the peace” do little more than apply palliative bandages after onslaughts of violence to cover a deadly (unsightly) injury.

Occupying the floor with ash on a panel of wood, Riddle of Peace/War (2022-ongoing) considers these layered topics by questioning who will ultimately be sacrificed for either “war” or “peace.” A misconstrued conception of the means by which to secure peace tips a violent scale for which humanity will always pay the price. Additionally, the individual handling of “war” and “peace” can also stand as a microcosm for the global struggle. Seeking peace internally can create desperation as it does within larger politics with fear and anxiety at their core. This desperation, anxiety, and fear screams, “seek peace BY ANY MEANS NECESSARY.” However, speaking from the individual level, I have only been able to grasp authentic peace within myself through a place of care and unconditional love for the covered parts of myself deemed unfit to express in the open. Releasing blame, shame, and fear and growing in empathy for the parts of myself and my childhood that I was conditioned to keep hidden have been the only ways to work through the traumas in my own story and continue growing from a stronger foundation. Aptly constructing and simultaneously destroying the distinctions between “war” and “peace,” Ito’s exhibition demonstrates the necessity of considering life from multiple angles and reveals that nothing is truly black and white. Furthermore, my “path to peace” is an evolving effort, but at its center I have been learning to remove the shame in an effort to understand all parts of myself, just as Ito removes shaming from his exhibition for those who inflict violence in their efforts for “peace” recalled in his works. Even the title of the exhibition, Teach Me How to Love This World, acts as a macro glance for the core requisite of my inner healing, which could read: Teach Me How to Love Myself.

Kei Ito, *Riddle of Peace/War*, 2022-ongoing. Ash, wooden platform.

Though somber, Ito’s exhibition is not hopeless. On the contrary, his work is full of hope. Nothing difficult disappears by ignoring it; peace is not possible without confronting daunting realities and pushing through them with eyes and heart wide open. Ito’s work does just that. It is bearing the face of questions the world is afraid to ask, and bravely calling for healing in the gray areas. If nothing else, Teach Me How to Love This World has inspired a level of self-reflection and further affirmation of the importance of empathy and love toward myself and in confronting the world around me. Ito’s exhibition implores, “teach me how to love this world.” I suggest that a place to start is learning how to love ourselves.

Kei Ito’s work is included in Teach Me How to Love This World at The Stamp Gallery of the University of Maryland, College Park, from October 19 – December 10, 2022.

For more information on Kei ito, visit http://www.kei-ito.com/.

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