Class of 2023 MFA Thesis Exhibition
Curated by Jasmine Wahi
Exhibition Period: 23 April – 21 May 2023
Address: Wallach Art Gallery, Lenfest Center for the Arts 615 West 129th Street, New York, NY 10027, United States
Highlighted in Hyperallergic’s article “Columbia’s MFA Show Is an Immersive Experience”. Writer Elain Velie talked about Nguyen’s work, “Two floors below, Alison Nguyen has summoned a horrific halved car filled with dirt. A disturbing film that follows the lives of three women programmed by artificial intelligence whose memories have been erased, interspersed with references to the Vietnam War, plays across three nearby screens. In one scene, the women sit in the back of a car with a dead man lying in a pile of dirt at their feet.”
Alison Nguyen: Artist Statement
The cultural implications of technology are a primary concern in my work. I’m interested in how images are produced, circulated, and consumed in mainstream culture and media, whether in film, advertising, or in virtual spaces. I draw from a range of disciplines, borrowing methodologies from documentary, performance, and architecture. Within each body of work I create highly considered, layered worlds which are offset by conditions I create for improvisation, humor, and failure.
Elements of my current work on view, history as hypnosis, draw from a live action video centering on a speculative fiction. Flipping cinematic tropes of science fiction and the American road film, history as hypnosis surfaces themes of alienation, assimilation, and refusal, centering on characters and narratives that are often omitted from history and the screen. The piece follows three women who are programmed by Artificial Intelligence and whose memories from their previous existence have been erased. Directed to search for a man named “X,” the three venture from the California desert to gas stations, gritty strip malls, starchitecture, and underground enclaves. Interweaving subtle references to past geopolitical violence associated with America’s war in Vietnam, the work offers a complex take on how memory, consciousness, and historical narratives merge.
Learn more --
https://www.vaexhibitions.arts.columbia.edu/class-of-2023/alison-nguyen
https://www.vaexhibitions.arts.columbia.edu/thesis/2023
https://hyperallergic.com/822371/columbia-mfa-show-is-an-immersive-experience/
