Fine Arts faculty Amina Ross’s new sculptural video installation is on view at Wave Hill in the Sunroom Project Space until October 23rd.
AMINA ROSS
I am under the rock the rock is higher than I, 2022
Sculptural, video installation Lives in Brooklyn, NY Dimensions variable
Courtesy of the artist
New York Community Trust Van Lier Fellow Amina Ross creates videos, sculptures, sound installations and situations to examine systems of power and to develop survival strategies for Black, queer, trans and femme communities. In I am under the rock the rock is higher than I, Ross constructs a multisensory environment comprising reclaimed materials, video and experimental audio, all in dialogue with the architecture of the space, and particularly the arched windows. Extending their interest in “the underground” from their recent work Man’s Country, about a former, queer bathhouse, Ross’s project develops a realm for marginalized figures to exist and thrive in safety and to exercise agency. Negotiating vulnerability and resiliency, Ross draws connections with spirituality and subterranean networks in the natural world.
During Wave Hill’s 2022 Winter Workspace, Ross explored the intersections of their digital, performance, text and sound-based practice and how these aspects of their practice relate to the soil. Ross contemplates being a part of the land—“beneath the earth and made of earth”—rather than extracting from it or overlooking it. Guided by the belief that the land holds memories, emotions and histories, the artist’s exhibition investigates cultural and social politics. Both physical and metaphorical in form, soil is often conflated with the idea of lowness—a term that is associated with inferiority or neglect—and Ross seeks to subvert these preconceived notions.
For more information: https://www.wavehill.org/calendar/amina-ross
