MFA Photography 2014 Alumni Lara Atallah Included in “Dense Bodies Bend Solid Ground” Exhibition
MFA Photography 2014 Alumni Lara Atallah has been included in the “Dense Bodies Bend Solid Ground” Exhibition which opens April 27th, 2018 at Radiator Gallery in Long Island City.
“This exhibition brings together works from four artists that consider bodies – human, earthly, and political – through evidence of their edges. Conceptually, we are taught to understand a body as individual and whole as far as it is contained within its designated boundaries or skin. That there even exists a line dividing one’s feet from the dirt, one nation state from the next, or the sand from the sea, is a fiction, perpetuated by an oblique understanding of the material world.
“Lara Atallah’s series 34.5531° N, 18.0480° E consists of Polaroids made along the Southern European and Western Asian coastlines, along with sun prints made from pebbles and small rocks, culled from the different beaches that were photographed. Bordered by over 20 countries, the Mediterranean is commonly perceived as a place for recreation and leisure, but the sea has become the only viable route to safer shores for the many refugees fleeing war zones. The Polaroids are all deliberately damaged within the first 30 seconds of their development, crushed between the artist’s hands or under her feet. The images themselves are devoid of any human depiction. Instead they infer a subtle violence in the emulsion’s veins and fissures. The sun prints are weighted for a period of time by pieces of the same landscape, but only the earth’s specter remains within the prints. Both the Polaroids and the sun prints attempt to capture the earthly materiality of a contentious political boundary, as well as the impressions from where they came into contact with light and the human body.”
Dense Bodies Bend Solid Ground
April 27th – June 29th, 2018
Opening Reception April 27th, 6-9pm at Radiator Gallery
