Elizabeth Chang
Ar[ch]ival
Exhibition
-> Aug 4 2023 – Aug 31 2023
Koik Contemporary presents Ar[ch]ival [ar[ch]ive work], solo exhibition by Elizabeth Chang, guest artist in residence.
Ar[ch]ival is based on archival research on the immigration stories of the Korean population who arrived in Mexico in 1905. In Ar[ch]ival, Elizabeth Chang works from different expository formats to bring forth a provocation about fictional power of the files. The archive not only houses the memory of the events that occurred, but also the questions, contradictions and biases that accompany them. To open a file is to allow what escapes it to come out. Doesn't the stories we pay attention to hide the echo of others that stopped playing?
The exhibition proposes a dialogue between objects and materials that show the economic, sociocultural, affective and political complexities of the experiences lived in the processes of individual and collective identity formation related to diasporic movements. Through a series of pieces and installations, the artist works with objects, materials, and languages to reflect on their predetermined functions, and transform the way they are used when challenging the dominant structures embedded in her narratives.
Only under the great machinery of history that will be in the future are the details that give meaning to life hidden, the shine is in the soles of the shoes.