The future looks like science fiction in the animal kingdom.

*Photo above: Pinar Yoldas, Regnum Alba, 2015

October 24 - November 19, 2017

Opening Reception and Artist Talk October 24, 6PM-8PM

A kitty with artificial intelligence turned world leader. Sea creatures spun out of plastic-drenched ocean waters. Genetically altered animals. The research-based artistic practice of Pinar Yoldas demonstrates how the future has the semblance of science fiction but is, too often, based firmly in scientific reality.

Yoldas employs intensive research at the intersection of emergent fields of science and art to imagine possible outcomes of life and their ethical dimensions. The indelible stamp of genetically altered life forms on humans, animals, and plant species as we now know them; climate change; the Anthropocene era of human impact on the ecology: these are concerns at the center of her artistic investigations. In the futurist tradition of sci-fi, Yoldas provides a thought-provoking understanding of our contemporary moment, and often, a touch of humor.

About the Artist

Pinar Yoldas is a multi-disciplinary designer/artist/researcher. Her work develops within biological sciences and digital technologies through architectural installations, kinetic sculpture, sound, video and drawing with a focus on post-humanism, ecological futures, feminism and technology.

Pinar is a 2015 John Simon Guggenheim Fellow in the Fine Arts and a 2016 FEAT Future Emerging Arts and Technologies Award recipient. Solo shows include The Warm, the Cool and the Cat at Roda Sten Konsthall (2016), Polyteknikum Museum Moscow (2015), An Ecosystem of Excess, Ernst Schering Project Space among many. Group shows include ThingWorld, NAMOC National Art Museum of Beijing (2014); Transmediale Festival, Berlin (2014), ExoEvolution at ZKM (2015),14th Istanbul Biennial (2015) ,Taiwan National Museum of Fine Arts (2016). She holds a Ph.D. from Duke University where she was affiliated with Duke Institute of Brain Sciences and Media Arts and Sciences. She holds a Bachelors of Architecture from Middle East Technical University, a Master of Arts from Bilgi University, a Master of Science from Istanbul Technical University and a Master of Fine Arts from University of California, Los Angeles where she worked at the Art|Sci Center and the UCLA Game lab.

About 12 x 12

12 x 12 artist salon series presents 12 artists from North Carolina, the 12th State. Each Salon is a pop-up exhibition and conversation with the artist. The series schedule consists of three exhibitions per spring and fall seasons in 2016 and 2017, beginning March 1st, 2016. At the end of the salons, a group exhibition in our Potter Gallery will bring together all twelve artists.

The twelve artists in the series represent a diversity of artistic practices and cultural backgrounds. At salon events, each artist will share ideas and processes of their studio practice in the midst of recent, new, or site-specific work presented in SECCA's Preview Gallery. Each artist will discuss their experience first-hand, inviting the public to ask questions and to engage in conversation. Like a studio visit, these salon events are a social space for the discovery and discussion, providing invaluable feedback to artists and insights to those who come to experience them.

12 x 12 gives artists from across North Carolina a public platform for continued artistic development and recognition in the place where they live and work, and beyond. At the same time, the series aims to push conversation around contemporary art forward and to consider the significance of localism as a curatorial framework. What does it mean to these artists to be working in the South and Southeast today, especially after the Internet and Globalization?

The 12 x 12 artists were selected by Cora Fisher (Curator of Contemporary Art, SECCA) and four guest jurors: Linda Dougherty (Chief Curator & Curator of Contemporary Art, North Carolina Museum of Art); Lia Newman (Director and Curator of the Van Every/Smith Galleries at Davidson College); Marshall Price (Nancy Hanks Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art, Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University); and Mary Anne Redding (Curator, Turchin Center for the Visual Arts).

An arts initiative sponsored by the Flow Foundation.