The Water Mirror — Nico Roxe

SPRING/BREAK Art Show 2017
"The Water Mirror" - March 1 to 6, 2017 - Room #6723

Curators: Elektra KB / Isaac Aden / Nicolas Ulloa (Nico Roxe)
Artists: Elektra KB / Isaac Aden, Maximilian Schmoetzer, Faith Holland, Esteban Rivera

Water is a physical and symbolic mirror in which we reflect ourselves. Water is nature’s surveillance tool. It reveals in its surface whatever is close to its proximity. It reflects visually and psychologically our collective psyche. We see water as a body, that when in it's natural wild state, is the epitome of freedom. Concepts of mobility, migration and mutability enter here. But water when is trapped and bottled, is an imprisoned body. It is no longer possible to see our reflection on it, we become censored.

By water is also a way in which refugees and migrants travel and have traveled through centuries. It is the way in which the colonizers came to our continent and water is also the means so many people use today risking their own lives to find safe haven. People are waging uprisings against corporations that capitalize in contaminating water or privatizing it. Water is the ultimate mirror, which contains, collects and reverberates our time and political climate. The exhibition explores water’s relationship to our current hyper surveilled society from its political effects as a trope in the news to the way it is employed as a signifier.

Artists use the symbolism, interpretation or the literality of water as a mirror in video. The works address: imprisoned bodies of water, surveillance, water in relation to massively shared images in social media and GIFs. All artists are using digital images that are flexible temporalities as water is. In which the artist chooses to reveal their face, perform characters, reveal their voice only or hide completely.

[Visit installation website here]