Searching for Eden
Art installation examines yearning for paradise
In the slideshow above, see images from past and current exhibitions, while Triiibe members discuss art, installation, and works in progress. Photos by Cary Wolinsky (COM’68)
When performance artists and triplets Alicia, Kelly, and Sara Casilio joined forces with photographer Cary Wolinsky (COM’68) to form an artists collective four years ago, the idea was to create political and social commentary art.
Today, that collective—called Triiibe—has grown to include a community of visual, web, and performance-based artists. Even as artists collectives go, this one is unusual.
Collaborating with a theater director, a sculptor, a printmaker, a costume designer, and a filmmaker, among others, Triibe has mounted In Search of Eden: A Work in Progress, now showing at BU’s massive 808 Gallery. The show explores the concept of temptation and man’s eternal yearning for paradise.
What sets the installation—with its photography, painting, sculpture, and performance—apart from others is its very literal evolution. As the title says, it’s a work in progress, evolving from week to week until its close on December 23. Every few days the artists open a set of black curtains to reveal another photographic triptych that plays with the theme of temptation and the search for paradise, as well as working on a painting together in the space.
“I think our life experience is just that search for Eden,” says Alicia Casilio. “It’s never a final, completed thing that you reach. It’s like making any artwork—you finish and you know you want to make something that’s better.”
“We’re trying to find ways of involving the public in seeing the process,” says Wolinsky, a cofounder of the Center for Digital Imaging Arts at Boston University as well as of Triiibe. “This exhibition is a halfway step there.”
The sound of hammers and power drills echoing through the 11,000-square-foot space is part of the show, as are the palettes strewn around the floor. And the installation is anything but static, with daily performances by the artists providing constant motion.
In Search of Eden is on display at the 808 Gallery, 808 Commonwealth Ave., through December 23, 2010. Gallery hours are Wednesday through Friday, 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. An opening reception is being held today, Friday, November 19, from 6 to 9 p.m. Admission is free and open to the public. For more info, call 617-353-3371.
Kimberly Cornuelle can be reached at kcornuel@bu.edu.
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