Outer Special
A collaboration with Lily Reeves
Curated by Angelica Fox
UrbanGlass, Brooklyn, NY
March 11, 2020 - January 8, 2021
Outer Special, illustrates the inherent human need to invent a personal reality through the connection of emotion and experience. The exhibition explores how the void, most commonly associated with the emptiness of outer space, can be viewed as a desirable location in an alternative reality; a space that fluctuates between digital utopia and a dismal, dystopian, post-human landscape. Artists Lucia Riffel and Lily Reeves explore the micro to macro realities that both surround and escape us, and question what would happen if the void coalesced with the real world.
Outer Special breaks the void into three key categories: the transcendence of light, the unknown, and altered reality; and includes three new installations created in collaboration by artists Riffel and Reeves: Light Architect, Where Are We, and Altered Sublimity Revised. The concept of the void is often depicted in popular culture, notably in science fiction genre film and television. A common trope places the protagonists far from home and lost in space. This plot device draws from the emotion of fear and describes the human need to escape what is unknown and return back to a reality easily perceived. These traits associated with the void and reflected in sci-fi characters provoke questions of why we are inherently afraid or uncomfortable with what we do not know. This exhibition examines these questions and validates that the void can, as a matter of choice, become a tranquil space offering opportunities for meditation and self-reflection.
Full curatorial essay by Angelica Fox here.
Outer Special breaks the void into three key categories: the transcendence of light, the unknown, and altered reality; and includes three new installations created in collaboration by artists Riffel and Reeves: Light Architect, Where Are We, and Altered Sublimity Revised. The concept of the void is often depicted in popular culture, notably in science fiction genre film and television. A common trope places the protagonists far from home and lost in space. This plot device draws from the emotion of fear and describes the human need to escape what is unknown and return back to a reality easily perceived. These traits associated with the void and reflected in sci-fi characters provoke questions of why we are inherently afraid or uncomfortable with what we do not know. This exhibition examines these questions and validates that the void can, as a matter of choice, become a tranquil space offering opportunities for meditation and self-reflection.
Full curatorial essay by Angelica Fox here.