Installations

Untitled collaboration between Henry Chung and Robert Walden, 2022
Mixed media installation
Variable dimensions
Installation view 3: wall detail

 

4heads Governor’s Island Portal Artist’s Residency, NYC
Fall 2022
 

Statement

Our collaboration rests at the intersection of identity, memory, time and ontology. We have combined site-specific drawing, audiovisual interpretations of the events that punctuated “Last Year” (i.e. 2019 – present) representing a portrait of our collective identity with interests in using cartographic language as a metaphor for the nature of being.

Chung’s electronic devices echo the news soundbites that punctuated our “Last Year.” Rendered in Morse code on some devices, or letter-by-letter on an LED display, quotes that punctuated our recent months reflect a portrait of our collective identities. All together, they overwhelm us with a sense of urgency, but without a clear path forward. They are the cries for help that we see but can’t hear, hear but can’t decipher.

Walden uses the language of cartography as visual metaphors to explore ontology --  the metaphysical study of the nature of being. Each line is a representation of the moment it is drawn, each drawing a representation of the network of moments that define a state of being. He applies this language to the topology of the well-aged walls of 408B Colonels Row as a technique to draw out the space's identity, history, and its own state of being.

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