Please join us for the opening of Archives Aflame: Works by Kei Ito and Andrew Paul Keiper
Saturday, March 23, 2019 @ 6:00 p.m. - 8:00 p.m. | Potter Gallery
Archives Aflame: Works by Kei Ito and Andrew Paul Keiper is a multi-media exhibition featuring a large-scale visual and sound installation that probes the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and the artists' intertwined family histories. The installation includes 108 human-scale photograms made using sunlight, light-sensitive paper and Ito's body evoking those lost in the bombing, and a 4-channel sound work that portrays the places and processes of the bomb's production, and includes field recordings made at atomic heritage sites in New Mexico and Chicago. In addition to this component, SECCA's exhibition will include additional projects by the artists, including Ash Lexicon a display 108 film canisters from the 1940s filled with ash from a burnt Japanese dictionary.
Ito's grandfather witnessed the explosion of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima that killed his family, while Keiper's grandfather was an engineer who contributed to the effort to develop the bomb. Their collaboration grapples with this history while asserting its pertinence to a contemporary audience living in an increasingly unstable political landscape. Ito and Keiper seek mutual understanding while contemplating the roots, sorrow, and scope of the bombing. In an era of overt nuclear crisis unlike any seen in decades, this exhibition asks the audience to reflect on the ramifications of our current course and to learn from the past.