exhibits
I CAN: Requiem for I Can’t
About this Exhibition
I CAN: Requiem for I Canʼt is a community participation art project aimed at shattering the limitations left in the wake of domestic violence and sexual assault. This project invites not only survivors but also the broader community to redefine what one believes they “Can” and “Can’t” do in relation to ending the violence. A collaborative project among artists Barbara T. Smith and Nina Jun and the A Window Between Worlds’ network of survivors and shelters, it featured the words and voices of more than 1,003 shelter participants from the greater Los Angeles area.
Begun in the tightly secured privacy of domestic abuse shelters and crisis agencies this highly charged project went public with a powerful transformative rite by acclaimed performance artist Barbara T. Smith, held at the Social and Public Art Resource Center, (SPARC) in March of 2012. A master storyteller, Smith wove together personal incidents and historic myths about challenge, possibility and all we accept as personally impossible. Her performance informed and guided a mental shift from limitation to possibility.
Lead Artists: Barbara T. Smith and Nina Jun
Lead Artists: Barbara T. Smith and Nina Jun
A pioneer of performance art, Barbara T. Smith lives in Los Angeles. She began her groundbreaking work in the late 1960s and has performed throughout the U.S., in Europe and in Asia. Smith’s ceremonial/shamanic performances, which often externalize her inner psychic and psychological material in mythic rituals, explore issues of gender, spirituality, and sexuality which are integrated into larger cosmic laws and structures. She is a recipient of three NEA grants, a Vesta Award and a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Women’s Caucus for Art. Her work was included in the recent show of LA artists at the Pompidou in Paris, and in “WACK! Art and the Feminist Revolution” at MOCA in Los Angeles and PS1 in New York. A graduate of Pomona College, Smith received an MFA from University of California, Irvine.
Nina Jun, a sculptor and video installation artist, lives in Southern California. She was born in Korea, moving to the United States while a child. Nina studied at California State University, Long Beach and received an MFA in Sculpture. For the past fifteen years she has been exhibiting her art throughout the United States and Korea.
A recurring shape in Nina’s video and sculptural installation work is the dome – a large half-sphere in different mediums: pine needles, decaying bread or ceramic shards. An element of her dome is a T.V. monitor inserted as a window to the soul, where she projects moving video images giving life to the sculptural shape. She is interested in art that changes the viewer’s perception of shape and form.
In 2006, The National Council on Education of Ceramic Arts invited Jun to show her video/ceramic installations at Lewis & Clark College in Portland, Oregon. Her public art projects include a site-specific installation at Union Station in Kansas City, Missouri and her ceramic projection work is included in ‘Contemporary Ceramics’ published by Thames and Hudson, London, 2009.
