Marwen exhibition...

Reviewed here.

Collaboration finished... Opening Friday December 17.

Seeing the Invisible

Explorations of Time
photographs and video
Marta Shumylo and Sonja Thomsen

December 17, 2010-March 12, 2011
Untitled Gallery
833 North Orleans Street, Chicago, Il 60610

Opening celebration: Friday, December 17, 5-7 pm
Closing celebration: March 2011, TBA

These events are free and open to the public

Marwen alumna Marta Shumylo collaborates with Sonja Thomsen, professor of photography at Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design, to explore metaphysical questions in relation to time. Collaborations include: Away/Home, a series of diptychs made simultaneously in the Ukraine and America; 90+ hours in 11 minutes, a looping video exploring creative process; Waiting, a look at the ephemeral effects of time on person, place and thing.

Here's a sneak peak of the installation in progress...

collaboration in progress... part 3

 

"Apple"  by Marta Shumylo                                       "25 weeks" by Sonja Thomsen

Along with the "home/away" series of diptychs, Marta and I have each been independently creating a short series of images & video titled "waiting." I found out I was pregnant with my first child during our year long collaboration. Aware of Marta's interest in documenting rotting fruit, I thought it fitting to document my growing belly. I was interested in Marta's process of decay and her photographic observations. They were the antithesis to the new life developing inside me.  "Waiting" for me became about a conversation about time as well as transition. Marta's rotting ripe fruit seen with such clarity and sensitivity and my own fertility documented weekly with a crude Polaroid are paired in the exhibition to speak to the ephemerality of life's cycles.

S:  I think anticipation was something both of us were grappling with while making photographs for the "waiting" series.  How do you think your perceptions of time and anticipation affected your series documenting rotting fruit? How did you select this subject?

M: I have always been interested in looking at the way everything ages and deteriorates. The beginning of the Rotten Fruit series was when I opened my fridge one day and saw a fruit that was slightly covered by mold. Instead of being disgusted I was amazed by the effect that time had on it. I started photographing immediately in spring of 2009. The photographs were interesting but I knew there was more to pursue in the series. I was very excited to continue working on the project for the show at Marwen during the summer/fall of 2010. The second time around growing the mold was an unanticipated challenge. I had to learn more about the climate and science of rotting the fruit. Seasonal weather affected my process and at times it was frustrating to see how some of the fruit would not rot the way I anticipated. 

Time played such a big role in this series. The process forced me to be more patient and just wait for decay to happen. It took much longer and more attempts than I anticipated and very often the lack of control and not knowing if the result would turn out interesting was overwhelming. 

I'm curious about your use of both still and moving image with your pregnancy documentation. Why did you use both media?

S: Hearing your child's heartbeat for the first time is an incredibly surreal experience. You don't look pregnant, you don't really feel pregnant (just ill) and yet you go to the doctor's office and there inside of you is another being's heart pounding away. I knew I wanted to record this sound before I went into the office. I needed a record/a reminder that it was really happening.  I did not anticipate being interested in the video footage at all - it was a means to record the sound. After a few visits I was fascinated in how the curvature of my belly was becoming more and more apparent in each video. In the final video piece the grid creates an interesting visual play with the Polaroid stills and the sound of the heartbeat is a powerful element that a viewer can personally experience if they engage with the piece and put on the headphones.  I love how the blending heartbeats create this heightened sense of anticipation to the first person perspective of the growing belly.  It is a little Edgar Alan Poe added suspense.

My final question for you is about this entire process (and the video that tries to speak to our long process).  What have you learned about yourself as an artist and the artistic process through this collaboration? Does our video bear witness to any of those things you have learned?

M:  As an artist, the more I learn, the more I realize how little I know. Through our problem solving and teaching ourselves new techniques I have been empowered with a new confidence in my own art making. I was not used to working in series for a show until this collaboration and it was interesting for me to challenge myself in such way.
Taking pictures is only a little part of the process when preparing an exhibition. Developing ideas through writing and discussion, creating work prints, proofing for color, and re-shooting are now crucial to my process. Editing has been a big part of this collaboration and I learned that what you refrain from putting in is just as important as what you put in.

Even though a year of working together is impossible to portray in a eleven minute video, I think it is an interesting addition that reflects on our time invested in art making.

collaboration in progress... continued

For the Marwen exhibition Marta and I were interested in exploring our perceptions of time through photography and video.  In the month of July we created a series of photographs titled "home/away." Marta was visiting home in the Ukraine and I was teaching/working in Milwaukee. We agreed to make a photograph a day at the same time (8 am in USA and 4pm in Ukraine) creating an archive of images taken at the same time worlds apart. Upon Marta's return we edited the work and were interested in some of the serendipitous pairings... there will be 14 diptychs from this work in the exhibition.

July 29, 2010 from home/away, Marta Shumylo & Sonja Thomsen

S: Home/away was a challenge for me but a fitting assignment for me to undertake as I was making my pre-college students take on the same challenge that month (although they didn't have a time limit).  It was an exercise in discipline (of which I failed at times) and thinking about my own domestic space as subject - something I never do. Although I often will photograph family and friends never do I pick up the camera in my own home for my art practice - curious.  I found myself paying more attention to the morning light than my home itself.  What was it like for you to be photographing in Ukraine which was once your home?

M: For me, working on our Home/Away project was extremely exciting but very difficult at the same time. This project is one of the main parts of our collaboration and yet I was physically so very far away from you, unable to get any feedback about my work.  Photographing every day made me pay attention to how my process was changing. By the end of this project I was very aware of how light looked at specific times of day, I learned my habits and became aware of my thinking that was related to the process. As time was passing by, I felt like I was  understanding the concept of being Home/Away more and more.

Visiting my home in Ukraine, a place where I was born, and thinking about time was a very strange experience. A lot of feelings and memories rushed back as soon as my plane landed, but for some reason this place no longer felt like home. I moved away only six years ago, yet to many changes happened during these six years. This experience also made me analyze myself and how I have changed during this time. That's when I had a moment of sudden revelation that transformations that happened to me are much larger than the ones that happened to the place where I was born and grew up. I am a different person now and no longer perceive things the way I did when I was living in Ukraine and that is why everything seemed so strange.

Collaboration in progress

This past year have been working with MIAD student Marta Shumylo in preparation for our collaborative exhibition at MARWEN this December.

Marta is a MARWEN alumni and is very passionate about the school and its programming.  In December of 2009 she asked me if I would show with her in their alumni gallery. After almost a year and many long conversations about art making I asked Marta to reflect with me on our process.  I will post bits of our conversation and works here in the next few days...

Sonja: What is Marwen? What does it mean for you to show there?

Marta:  Marwen is an organization that offers free art classes for youth. It is a place where young artists go because they want to be there. It is a place that offers inspiration, support, education, feedback as well as many other things without asking for anything in return. It is a place that has changed my life because I am sure that if i did not have the experience I had at Marwen, there is a big chance I would not have ended up in an art school... 
Having the ability to exhibit my work at Marwen means a lot to me because I have a tremendous amount of respect for everybody there. By having a show there I wish to inspire the students that go there and hope to make the faculty proud. This would be my way of showing appreciation and staying connected.

S: When offered the opportunity to show at Marwen, why did you ask for a collaborative exhibition  instead of a solo show?

M: I was originally thinking about doing a solo show but eventually the idea of having such great responsibility became too overwhelming.  After talking to Arielle, Coordinator of Alumni Programs, I decided that it would be a much more enjoyable experience for me if I worked with another artist. 

S: When we started talking about the show last December I remember being moved by the enthusiasm and energy you brought to the table, it was impossible to turn down the opportunity to work with someone so motivated. I can't believe it has been almost a year since that first meeting, we are in the midst of final printing, editing of video and I am expecting my baby's arrival any day now!  It is interesting how our conversations about time and the ephemeral in photography became more palpable for me in my 9 months of anticipation.  

July 6, 2010 from home/away, Marta Shumylo & Sonja Thomsen