Toma Peiu and Luiza Parvu premiere two video & sound installation as a part of Uncommon Histories - an exploratory exhibition hosted by the Department of Critical Media Practices at the University of Colorado Boulder.
Peiu and Parvu’s site-specific works use two structural columns in the gallery space as amplification devices and physical obstacles. The sound-and-video installation 7 Scenes From a Neighborhood Café transports the visitor to the space of a Central Asian diasporic diner in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, NY. The sculptural sound-and-text piece Once upon a time, a village / Fatherland envelops a column from which resonate sounds of water flowing & dripping, in the colors of the flag of Uzbekistan, onto which is transcribed (in Parvu’s handwriting) an abridged version of “The Golden Fish: an Uzbek fairy tale”, published in English, in Moscow, in the 1980s.
UNCOMMON HISTORIES brings together artists and researchers who approach the theme of in different ways. What, we might ask, does it mean to be uncommon, or to “uncommon” a history? How does the individual engage with the collective? How is a master narrative complicated by other ways of telling or showing? How can we create a space of interaction between other participants and our work? Through installations of images, text, performed ritual and sound, the participants address or problematize these questions or the notions embedded within them.
In many languages around the world, history contains within it a story. The pieces collected here engage with this fortunate ambiguity of the term. We tell stories of a sort, and we provide a space to tell stories about those stories. We further emphasize that these histories are plural and constructed.
The exhibition runs April 26th - May 2nd, 2018, in the Media Lab exhibition space @ Folsom Stadium, Gate 7, Suite 255. A closing reception with participating artists will be held on May 2nd @ 6pm.
