A Dialogue Between Trees
Technology is, in the broadest sense, mind or intelligence or purpose blending with nature.⁷
Paul Davies, English physicist 2010
In my career as a designer, inventor, and scientist, I have seen how society and culture can be gravitational forces that pull unexpected concepts together, increasingly allowing the creation of links between technology and art. In many beautiful cases, the element that allows them to unite is the appreciation for nature. This sentiment is echoed in the collection of artwork that makes up Unconnected Yet.
Unexpectedly in this collection, the introduction of nature is presented as one more connector. Nature, as a bridge, is sometimes visualized as disjointed, quoted, and exposed. At other times it is seen in company with technology, represented as itself and even mimicked, as it reflects a wide range of topics.
What would you connect if you could? In my mind, I answer myself. I want to see human beings connected with life on earth and with themselves.
Seeing all the work in this show, I realize that we are just beginning the conversation. We have so much—intent—to connect. From my perspective, what unites all the pieces in this exhibition is diversity, the transition between shapes and colors, tones and strong expressions, ideas, and themes—as if they came straight from the soul to scream to be heard—but above all the high content of organic forms, glimpses of subtle and literal inspiration that come from nature.
It moves me that in the fragments that make up the works in this collection, their narratives, and their intention of forms, there is an act of self-healing, an impulse to reconcile the past and the present, to amend a society that wants to be repaired. I see a fine filament that gently creates a mesh in the social frame, the past, and the soul within a reality that begins to define itself.
In this collection of artwork, I perceive hope, and with joy, I recognize the criticism of technology. The representation of technology often shows a movement toward a more simple path and, in some cases, an expression of hope for the future to regenerate and prosper with nature.
Technology has undoubtedly been a co-creating element of many pieces presented in this selection. In the hands of the artist in the last thirty-seven years, technology has modified art in a contagious way. Technology has made it possible for those who have left the traditional brush and the old techniques to venture into endless possibilities, where technology, with accuracy, allows them to create multiple realities.
With grace, several artists have transitioned between atemporal photographs, electric colors, and even fictional realities created in artificial intelligence to connect with human empathy.
Technology is not only assisting art in its creation, but it can also further expand its intervention in art. I believe that in the very immediate future, art and technology will connect so that artistic appreciation and aesthetics in science will be fundamental in the expression of itself.
In this call to “imagine the gap“—things to be connected, something to be spanned, a subject to better understand, an unexperienced phenomenon, an unnamed or unseen thing, or maybe even something unexplainable—the Kolkata show is made up of a wide gradient of techniques and artistic maturity, new pieces, and old pieces, all describing a new connection or something not yet connected, but above all, there is humility in the dialogue.
I am excited about a multidisciplinary future where scientists, inventors, and artists share a workspace; more than that, like trees that are not just sharing space, they share roots, nutrients, and information.
Daniela Esponda
Mexico City, Mexico, December 2022
Unconnected Yet — From Maryland to Kolkata and Beyond, Black and Brown Artists Use Collage as a Vehicle for Self-Expression and Connection
Unconnected Yet is “about the junction between things,” as the lead curator Todd Bartel eloquently writes in the exhibition statement. As a Black female consulting curator, I was excited to explore this liminal space in my selections for the show. I wanted to select works that represented Black and Brown life in myriad ways, and I thought about the power and possibility of Black and Brown artists having their work on display in an exhibition in India. I also was thrilled about these artists having their work available in print in this catalog you hold. Like the exhibition, this catalog explores “the junction between things” we, from different backgrounds, races, and locations, came together to present the exhibition you see today.
We individuals approach truth through our own mistakes and blunders, through our accumulated experience, through our illumined consciousness.
Rabindranath Tagore, in conversation with Albert Einstein, 1930
In this quote above and which you saw at the beginning of this catalog, Rabindranath Tagore speaks poetically about how we, as humans, navigate our existences. We make mistakes, we triumph, we experience tragedy, we love, we learn, we grow, and we connect. I could not help being moved by the words “through our accumulated experience” to “approach truth.” That is one of the fantastic benefits of collaging. Collaging is so parallel to life and uniquely parallel for life for Black creators. Who, throughout time, have used what others have discarded to make magic. Think of soul food, Louis Armstrong using tape and photographs to make collages on his instrument case, and the legacy of Black creative expression across mediums and time. Those who make something out of nothing.
In 2019 I started the Instagram platform Black Collagists. Collectors hired me from Washington State to help them diversify their art collection after the wave of white institutions and collectors shifting their focus to diversity, equity, and Black art. I never expected that Instagram page to grow into what it is today. A community. @blackcollagists has become a platform for Black artists worldwide to connect and feel seen. It is a space that exists solely for Black collage artists. Historically, Black artists’ accomplishments have been diminished and ignored across the board, from drawing to oil painting to collage. My work as a curator has been and will continue to make space for marginalized artists. My work with @blackcollagists accomplishes this, and I am so grateful that this exhibition invited me to ensure diverse voices, including Black collage artists, are represented from Baltimore to Kolkata, India.
I am a curator who is motivated by intuition. When a piece speaks to me, I listen. Representation is critically essential for Black artists. To see themselves in their work, the work of others online, in print, and in galleries. Their art matters. I wanted audiences in India to walk into an exhibition that was extensive and representative of the hybridity of the United States. This exhibition is revolutionary in the caliber of the 64 artworks represented here, some of which have never been exhibited in a gallery outside of the United States. In this essay, I’m going to talk about three artists whose work spoke to me through my digital screen in the process of curating this exhibition. Two are people of color from the United States. I am writing this essay in the United States from my office in Baltimore, Maryland. Baltimore is a predominantly Black city, and two artists I selected work from, Chukwudumebi Gabriel Amadi-Emina and Noreen Smith, live and work here.
Noreen Smith (Maryland, USA), analog collage, Angry or Assertive? May the Bridges I Burn Light the Way, 2020, layers vibrantly hued comic book extracts. Her collage practice involves sourcing the materials for her artworks from old comic books. Her clever and inventive remixing of this material into representational artworks featuring Black subjects is abundant and beautiful. Hero imagery is abundant. I was immediately drawn to the atypical shape, and it reminded me of a brain, as well as the abundance of visual information and signals that Smith loads all of her pieces. At the bottom of the piece, a Black fist extends up powerfully. Smith’s analog collages are rendered full of motion by the pace and skill of her application. The middle of Angry or Assertive? May the Bridges I Burn Light the Way features a white woman’s face, partially obscured but still fully present. Her expression is powerful, angry, and mighty. After viewing the piece, I recognized the brilliance of the title. As a Black woman, I have often weighed the junction between being what is perceived as too angry and rightfully angry. This piece encapsulates the experience of many Black and Brown women, how we are called too much when we respond with righteous indignation, while white women are called assertive. Smith’s piece illustrates the notion of art as a vehicle for self-expression. For Black artists, art is not a luxury. It is a tool, and it is liberatory practice. It is a freedom song. For many, art is THE way that we can express ourselves.
Chukwudumebi Gabriel Amadi-Emina (Maryland, USA) multimedia artwork, She Stands Above the Lies They Made, 2021, speaks to the global nature of Unconnected Yet as Well. Amadi-Emina, who lives and works in Baltimore, has created this work with photography, digital collage, and metal. In it, the subject, a Black woman, looks at the viewer. She wears a headpiece wrapped in decorative fabric that shrouds her like a robe. The background of the piece is collaged into sections. The top two sections are strips of African fabrics. In contrast, the bottom of the piece features a background of American one hundred dollar bills, and there is a mouth with teeth outlined peering through the middle of the fabric. The subject is regal and beautiful. Standing guard, and standing triumphantly over what the artist says represents the spaces men occupy in the U.S. The subject of the painting, Dom, told Amadi-Emina, “When I look at my reflection sometimes, I don’t see myself but an illusion of the same likeness designed by someone else. All I know is this; it’s not my truth.” In the creation of this artwork, Amaidi-Emina has corrected the record and has allowed his friend to have space to embody her truth most fully. She is fully present and empowered in this artwork.
In 2019 it felt as though the world stopped turning on its axis. I felt for a while, that time had stopped. We now exist in a new world, another junction between things, the past, and our new “post-pandemic” reality. In my selections, I was particularly moved by Nina Fraser’s (Alcochete, Portugal) artwork. In her Circle Series #1, 2020, the artist layers photographs and images of bodies of various races, pop culture, and natural references. Her artwork is in a circle, something that I found very refreshing. Like time, like our existence, we exist in circles, moving and reconfiguring, evolving and whole. Fraser completed the artwork when she was confined to her home on her kitchen table. That artwork made at her home in Portugal during the global pandemic will come full circle to be displayed in this exhibition and this catalog, illustrating the power of creative expression and how art helps us to continue on.
During the forced isolation of the global COVID-19 pandemic, I spent much time looking at art online. The curation of this show was facilitated through the internet and phones. And now, it is a physical exhibition and catalog for people to see in India and worldwide. Artists are more similar than they are different. Though we may collage, write, and paint from different locations, or if we engage in other disciplines, like science or literature, we can make connections by tapping into art that speaks to the human experience.
Teri Henderson
Baltimore, Maryland, December 2022
Unconnected Yet—Drawing the Lines
Our strategy should be not only to confront Empire, but to lay siege to it. To deprive it of oxygen. To shame it. To mock it. With our art, our music, our literature, our stubbornness, our joy, our brilliance, our sheer relentlessness—and our ability to tell our own stories. Stories that are different from the ones we’re being brainwashed to believe.⁸
Arundhati Roy, War Talk, 2003
Another world is not only possible, she’s on her way. Maybe many of us won’t be here to greet her, but on a quiet day, if I listen very carefully, I can hear her breathing.⁹
Arundhati Roy, War Talk, 2003
In selecting art for this exhibition, I considered the connection between art and science. At the same time, I looked for the invisible lines that bridge us between trust and truth, wonder and the unknown, while also searching for women’s points of view.
In recent years as we have collectively moved through the pandemic, facts have been ignored, and we have witnessed a distrust in science. Not only have science and truth been overlooked, but women’s voices continue to be undervalued.
When considered together, some of the chosen works that make up Unconnected Yet metaphorically connect to each other. Several lines of thought between these works explore women’s collective struggles. Some points of view are confrontational and concrete, real and factual, while others are spiritual and embrace the unknown.
We are invited to view these disparate pieces of work by searching and uncovering what we see to unearth more. We must be steadfast when we face the unknown to find the truth. We must push through the discomfort to learn. Some truths are personal and require introspection. Some truths are intrapersonal and require seeing outside of oneself—to recognize the suppression of women and the realities of our daily contentions. In this exhibition, we are asked to slow down and, as Arundhati Roy writes, “listen” to “her breathing” to connect and work together.
Talin Megherian
Watertown, Massachusetts, December 2022
- Wystan Hugh Auden, The Listener, June 23, 1955, pp. 1109-10.
- Harold Taylor, Art and the Intellect, The Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1960, p. 28.
- Robert Rauschenberg in conversation with Charlie Rose, Guggenheim Museum, New York, 1997, quoted from https://charlierose.com/videos/18836
- Todd Bartel, founding member of Bengal Boston Bridge (BBB), excerpted from the BBB Mission Statement, 2022
- Gus Speth, Earth Charter Pod Cast, https://earthcharter.org/podcasts/gus-speth/, retrieved December 8, 2022
- Todd Bartel, call for art, Unconnected Yet Prospectus, 2022
- Paul Davies, The Eerie Silence: Renewing Our Search for Alien Intelligence, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Boston, MA, p.145
- Arundhati Roy, War Talk, South End Press, Cambridge, MA, 2003, p. 112
- Arundhati, p. 75