“How do we move from just prioritizing the material, when there are some things beyond the material that could be preserved better? What are the conservation directions for something that is installed in your head?”
– Korean-Colombian-American artist
Gala Porras-Kim, on the institutional critique leveraged in her
MCA Denver solo exhibition.
Precipitation for an Arid Landscape (2021), for example, proposes that ceremonial offerings dredged from a sacred Mexican cenote and moved to Harvard’s Peabody Museum be “rehydrated,” because the Mayan god of rain, Chac, remains their rightful owner.
