Heather Hart Talks 'The Oracle of Lacuna'

office sat down with Heather Hart to talk about the new installation and how its structure will serve as a catalyst for various medium-spanning interpretations, as well as her own medium-spanning research in preparing the sculpture and what she hopes visitors take away from the unique experience.

How did your involvement with Storm King come about?

Years ago, I visited Storm King. I have mentors who had shown their work here, but I was an artist in residence at LMCC when I met Nora, who curated my piece at Storm King, as she came through to do studio visits in 2013. She kept an eye on my work, I presume, and then reached out.

You have previously said that you are inspired by storytelling traditions that often oppose official written history. Could you give us some examples?

It's not that I favor oral history per se, but I think it holds equal weight and is often overlooked or dismissed. In 2011 I took a research trip that led me from my home in Brooklyn to a small town in North Carolina, following my father’s family line. There I found a microfiche for an 1877 marriage license of my great grandfather’s mother. It was a marriage between Winnie Wells and Julius Hart. But her name was Minnie. Was it the way she spoke or the clerk’s listening skills that left her name lost in translation? With a one-letter error in transcription, Minnie had disappeared for over a century. Our “factual” records are full of errors like these: a census taker’s handwriting or the subject’s accent changes a name or a race or a date. And that changes our history.

On a subsequent trip to Massachusetts, I found an essay that was based on an interview with my great-grandfather. The son of a slave, he had moved North from Virginia at 17 years old, alone, ten years before the Great Migration. In this essay, he mentions the tribe in Africa from which he was descended. I was emotionally overwhelmed and I called my father. But my father sounded apathetic. After prodding him to tell me why he wasn’t as moved as I was, he told me this detail was likely fabricated. My great-grandfather had constructed a persona not just to forge his fantasy life, nor for attention, or for honor, but for survival. There are tons of stories my family has not written down. I am not a registered Native American, but, my grandmother, who had my exact coloring, told stories of her grandmother who she said was Stockbridge Mahican. All of the details to her stories and traditions she handed down are consistent with her belonging to the tribe that was relocated to Wisconsin, but we have no papers, so in most people's eyes, we are not Native.

This interactive sculptural exhibit focuses around 'a domestic rooftop'. What was the thought process behind this? Why a rooftop?

As with the legends of an oracle, the method of building Roof is passed from person to person. It is made with traditional framing as structure, taught to me as a child by my father who was a carpenter. The Oracle of Lacuna has the appearance of an independent rooftop (referencing my childhood gabled roof), removed from its house, and dropped from the sky (or emerging from the earth?) to live its own life in a new context. It can depict the enigmatic nature of a space, existing simultaneously inside and outside, an oasis and a hazard, the underground and the visible, private and public, minimal and handmade, the spiritual and the natural. The content of the forms further transforms depending on who experiences it and their perception, which is what happens to legends that are handed down in their oral tradition: transformation. A rooftop can refer to home, stability, shelter, but in this context, it is also an action of reclaiming power—of influence, direction, and earth.

How do you envision most people will respond to this piece?

I imagine they would begin with a sense of play and wonder. But I hope they bring their own frames of reference to the form of the roof and the process of exploring the attic or climbing the shingles. In that way, they can bring new life and a new narrative to the site I've set up as a catalyst. They can literally change the identity of my sculpture this way. But I also hope that somewhere in the process, maybe on a follow-up visit or after talking with other visitors about their experiences, they begin to reflect on their position in the world, their power and agency, and the idea that there might be many truths to the narrative of this roof and maybe to many other things in the world.

A rooftop can refer to home, stability, shelter, but in this context, it is also an action of reclaiming power—of influence, direction, and earth.

What was the intention behind designing this space to be multifunctional?

I love trying to make something that has a life outside of my intention and outside of the immediate art-viewing experience. I want the piece to be open enough to allow for a shift in its identity caused by a viewer's frame of reference or a public program. It's a metaphor for each of us, really. I think Blackness is not monolithic, as humanity is not monolithic, and we adapt and bend to our situations. I don't want to make art that is quickly dismissed, I want to create something that has layers that can be unearthed every time you come back or later in your week, and might ask you to be an active viewer and take responsibility in that process of reading narrative and form and meaning, I want to create an echo in people's heads and hearts.

Where did your interest in fusing historical and fabricated belief systems begin?

#slavery. Just kidding. But really, I think through this process, I am unpacking and reflecting on what I have inherited from my forefathers and why. I think this fusion has always been with me. Theories of the Black Fantastic and Afrofuturism are partly existent purely for survival. In order to carve out the agency, to have any hope for a future when you have nothing, you must have imagination and create your own narrative; fabricate a fantasy. I believe that trauma breeds fantasy. And what we hold as fact is always based on perception, interpretation, translation and what we know in this moment. So fact and fiction have always been intertwined. There would be no science without fantasy. Historical systems (facts) have always evolved and changed BECAUSE our fabricated systems (imagination) questioned "reality."

You incorporated help from local historians and artists to learn more about the area. How did that knowledge intersect with your project?

I always look to make the roof site-specific. I am usually the outsider, so I depend on unearthing an intersection between the site and myself. I found here that when I visited with an Abbott at Wonkaksa Buddhist temple I spoke about outreach and mindfulness, ways we can bring outsiders into his temple and ways we can bring meditation to the roof. I discussed the origins of farming with a black woman farmer, we spoke about the fact that Africans and slaves were farmers and knew about sustainable food systems. These things we have forgotten and the need to remember them. I spoke to an elementary school team about authorship, who tells their stories and how that might change how people hear them. I spoke to a librarian about slavery in New York, discovered that one of the places they hid slaves on the underground railroad in this area was in the rooftops (!!).

I spoke to a black women-owned local skin care business about migration because I was hearing about people moving from New York City looking for a more sustainable life and what that means versus gentrification to this area. I spoke to a real estate blogger, whose hobby was knowing the area, about politics and what impact gentrification and involvement in local governments can preserve or erase history. Countless valuable and complicated conversation that resonated with my work led me to decide that the site-specific shrine piece should be a literal archive where I could explore a collection of perspectives on this site, let the speakers be the author and ask the visitor to navigate.

The two aims of your work is to create "a site-specific liminal space for personal reclamation but also in unpacking dominant narratives and creating alternatives to them.” How do you think the two complement each other? Or do they?

The idea that I can unearth alternatives to dominant narratives reflects the liminal space that I look to examine. I want the visitor to involve themselves in this process, so I want to create work that is open to the visitor's frame of reference, thus making my piece a liminal space and questioning the idea that there can ever by one read on a narrative. I want the visitor to think about the fact that in this space of Storm King, there are countless reads to its history and presence, and they can also be included in that reading process.

Tell us about the relationship you have with Storm King in terms of support and collaboration.

Storm King has been really fearless in its support of me. They really understand and trust what I do. I was able to collaborate with not only the curatorial team but the founders and the education and public programming team to plan the piece for the season. I'm really excited for what is in store to activate the roof!

What do you want visitors to take away from the experience of your work?

Whatever they'd like really. But I hope, like I said above, that after the playful stage that they can get to a more contemplative self-examining stage and let the piece and the experience echo in their lives a bit after they leave.

Outlooks: Heather Hart is on view at Storm King from May 13-November 26.

Art

Pamela Sneed’s Speaking Tongue opens at Dashwood Projects

November 15, 2024

Pamela Sneed’s latest exhibition, Speaking Tongue, will be on view at Dashwood Projects from November 20 to December 21. The show features twenty watercolor and ink paintings inspired by her recent trip to Kenya, where she was deeply moved by the elegance of giraffes, the landscapes, and the energy of Nairobi.

Blending her background as a poet and visual artist, Sneed’s work reflects on themes of identity, nature, and connection. Her paintings capture the beauty and spirit of the animals she encountered, alongside reflections on her own experiences as part of the African diaspora.

This exhibition marks Sneed’s first solo show with Dashwood Projects and will be accompanied by a new book, also titled Speaking Tongue, to be released in December.

By Enzo Holdt
Artworks by Pamela Sneed

Art

Tiebreaker - Alvin Armstrong

November 15, 2024

There is a moment of silence right before the play. Just before the racket strikes the ball as it hangs weightless in the air, breathless and charged. It’s the fleeting yet decisive instant that can alter the course of the match, determining who wins and who loses.

Alvin Armstrong depicts this crucial moment in his new exhibition Tiebreaker, symbolizing the risks and rewards of competition. It’s an implication of something else at stake, where athletes push not only their bodies, but their spirits to the absolute limit.

The dynamic figures embody the strength, grace, and agility juxtaposed by the vibrant color palette evoking not just the joy of competition but the charged energy of the court.

Tiebreaker is opening Thursday, November 16th at Anna Zorina Gallery.

By Rea Brayshaw
Artworks by Alvin Armstrong

Art

The Things People Are Ashamed To Take Photos Of: The Photography and Films of Yuhan Cheng

Yuhan’s latest exhibition of photo and video work titled 窗子外 Outside the Window, Inside the Tank 鱼缸里 takes its namesake from what could’ve been a mundane encounter. A month after moving to New York City from Chengdu, China, they stumbled across an abandoned fish tank left curbside. It reminded them of “the rotating fish in a tank that faded into the background of their mother’s home in Chengdu”, a thread connecting childhood familiarity that transformed into a symbol of greater significance in adulthood. A tank is a world within a world; a microcosm secluded from the broader chaos of the outside. Since then Yuhan has captured the other kinds of “fish tanks” closest to them in their photography and short films. Not literal ones necessarily– but intimate confined spaces in Chengdu and NYC where time stands still.

In the midst of taking snapshots of loved ones, Yuhan decided to turn their tender but examining lens on themselves. They realized shooting self-portraits unraveled a deeper understanding of their own nonbinary gender and queer sexuality. Yuhan admits in one of their short films “I hide from looking at my own body.” Yet, in the seclusion of their room which doubles as a dark room, Yuhan began to develop their first nude photos chronicling the subtle wounds; bitten cuticles, bruises, and scrapes they’ve accumulated involuntarily, once again documenting the things people choose to hide.

窗子外 Outside the Window, Inside the Tank 鱼缸里, debuted at FAR-NEAR Studio Hours a gallery in Chinatown focused on expanding the art world's view of Asia and Asian artists curated by Lulu Yao Gioiello. The event merged Yuhan’s works from the past three years, including 70 photographs, three short documentaries, and one installation. There was something uncanny about the gallery’s atmosphere – from the dollar store teal green curtains obscuring every window to the clusters of framed photos mimicking how photos of relatives are displayed in one’s childhood home, to the darkened lighting that was both disorienting and cozy. All these details were meticulously chosen to imitate the rooms depicted in Yuhan’s films and photography. In other words, the audience was invited to Yuhan’s “fishtank”, to share the odd balance of comfort and unease of being known intimately. We talked to Yuhan at Cafe Reggio to understand how their latest body of work came into being.

Initially, I was exploring my friends’ identities through the lens, but slowly, it became a tool to confront and understand my own queerness and gender identity.

Ora Margolis— Were any memories/childhood experiences you had in Chengdu important to how you've developed as an artist?

Yuhan Cheng— Growing up in Chengdu, especially in a military household, shaped and gave me a source of contention how I understood my identity. There was always a sense of conflict when it came to my body and feeling like I didn’t quite fit the expectations around me. This tension has been a driving force in my practice, pushing me to explore identity and belonging in my work.

Tell us a bit about your latest exhibition Outside the Window, Inside the Tank at Far. What headspace were you in when taking these photos?

YC— Outside the Window, Inside the Tank is about the fluidity of self; our bodies, our environments, and our identities. The idea of water as both a symbol of confinement and freedom is central to the photos and film that comprise the exhibit. This fluidity much like how I see my experience moving between Chengdu and New York, where similar feelings follow me no matter where I am. Water mirrors the body, the frame, and the room, which are all containers of the self.

Previously, you’ve said you wanted the exhibition space to look "like your room". How did you make that happen and why is your NYC room important to you?

YC— My room in NYC is an extension of my identity. It’s where I feel vulnerable and where I explore myself most openly. It’s a manifestation of my sense of self. I recreated certain elements in the exhibition—the green sheer curtains, the dollar store shower curtain with bubbles, and the center installation depicted a self-portrait deteriorating in water, reminiscent of a fish in a tank. This room, like any other room or container, magnifies the tension of self-exploration.

Has your idea or comfort with your gender identity and /sexuality changed since you’ve delved into photography?

YC— Yes. The process of photography and filming has been a mirror to my own understanding of self. Initially, I was exploring my friends’ identities through the lens, but slowly, it became a tool to confront and understand my own queerness and gender identity. The process of photographing my queer friends and then myself allowed me to come to terms with who I am.

How did you and Lulu Yao of FAR-NEAR Studio meet, and what makes her a good collaborator?

YC— We first connected when I reached out with my series Princess of Funan River. Lulu understood the struggles and complexities in the work and she invited me to expand on those ideas with her. Our collaboration has worked because Lulu truly resonates with the themes I’m drawn to, like fluidity, transformation, and the intimacy of navigating belonging.

After completing Fish Tank and Remnants of an Amateur Film, what kind of movie do you want to make next?

YC— Right now, I’m more focused on writing. I need to understand what I want to say before making another film. Writing helps me find clarity;it’s a crucial part of my process.

What kind of camera do you use and why?

YC— I use a Canon AE-1. I started with it and I still love it. It's small, spontaneous, easy to use, and light. It allows me to capture moments naturally without overthinking.

What's your biggest fear?

YC— Being disconnected from my sense of self, from others, and from the things I love.

When do you feel most like yourself?

YC— It’s during those fleeting moments when I complete a project. That feeling fades quickly, leaving me searching for the next project to reconnect with that sense of fulfillment.

How do you want people to feel when they interact with your art?

YC— I want them to feel whatever resonates with them. I don’t want to prescribe the experience; it should feel right for each person.

Your work focuses on the close knit communities that surround you or various metaphorical “fish tanks”. What communities do you feel closest to?
YC— The queer artist community, both in Chengdu and NYC, has been a source of comfort and understanding for me. There’s something about shared struggles and shared creative language that feels like home.

What's the biggest difference between living life as a queer artist in NYC and in Chengdu?

YC— In both NYC and Chengdu, I’m learning more about myself. NYC offers a sense of freedom, while Chengdu is home, a place of comfort and history. Neither place defines me but both are significant parts of my path.

What are your next moves/goals?

YC— I want to continue exploring both film and photography, expanding my narrative style and experimenting across mediums. During my show, I found new ways of seeing my photographs such as by adding a window screen between frames or letting a self-portrait fade and grow mold in water. These approaches allowed me to see my work not just as 2D images but as 3D objects.

I want to keep pushing the boundaries of how photo and film can interact, and I’m also interested in trying photojournalism. My focus remains on collaborating across mediums and continuing to accumulate experiences that I can translate into sincere honest work.