Atlas Unlimited Acts IV & V:
Chicago, USA - Logan Center Gallery/University of Chicago - 2019
Duration: 120 mins
Project Conceived by: Karthik Pandian & Andros Zins-Browne
Realized in close Collaboration with: Anthony Adcock, Carris Adams, Jared Brown, Sherry Diaz, Jane Foley, Sami Ismat, Mohammad Miah, Gabe Moreno, Tasha Vorderstrasse, and students in the Design Apprenticeship and Community Actors Programs at Arts + Public Life, University of Chicago.
Since 2011, visual artist Karthik Pandian and choreographer Andros Zins-Browne have been exploring the image of revolution in the wake of the Arab Spring. Narratives of movement—figurative and literal, political and aesthetic, confessional and speculative—have woven their way through a series of interrelated works across moving image, theatre, and dance. Atlas Unlimited, the latest iteration of this ongoing project, combines sculpture and storytelling, tracing the flows of people, art, and artifacts across geographies and cultures in the past, present, and future. Taking place across a number of international venues, Atlas Unlimited changes and adapts to its specific context as it moves, unfolding in a succession of “acts” at each location.
At the Logan Center Gallery, temporary architectures and sculptural fragments depict artifacts, monuments, tents, and border walls from Tahrir Square and Palmyra to Myanmar and the US-Mexico border. Other objects on view draw directly from the artists’ research on Chicago, referencing the “Street in Cairo” attraction and other temporary exhibitions erected during the Columbian Exposition of 1893. These fragmentary sets are presented in a constant state of flux as a cast of Builders including a conservator, an actor, and a painter intermittently erect, maintain, and dismantle them. Working in the gallery during opening hours, each builder recounts tales of displacement, settlement, and reconstruction that interweave personal testimonies with fictionalized accounts. These narratives emerge from a series of workshops conducted by the artists and their ongoing conversations with a host of collaborators in Chicago and elsewhere. (Text copied from https://arts.uchicago.edu/logan-center/logan-center-exhibitions/exhibitions-projects/karthik-pandian-andros-zins-browne-atlas)
Photography: Jad Dahshan
