Exhibition
Srijon Chowdhury: Memory Theater
13 Apr 2016 – 28 May 2016
Event times
First Thursday reception, May 5, 6:00 to 8:00 pm
Cost of entry
free
Address
- 929 NW Flanders St
- Portland
Oregon - 97209
- United States
Travel Information
- one block from the NW 10th and NW Glisan streetcar stop
16th century inventor Giullio Camillo’s unrealized Memory Theater, a structure that one enters in order to remember the whole history of the universe, is reimagined by artist Srijon Chowdhury as a circular structure where viewers, upon entering, become both audience and actor in a shadow-play.
About
For Chowdhury’s first project at Upfor, the artist reimagines 16th century inventor Giullio Camillo’s theory of a universal storage and retrieval system: The Memory Theater, a structure that one enters in order to remember the whole history of the universe. The exhibition centers around a circular semi-transparent structure built and decorated in the gallery by the artist. The exterior is hung with a complex tableau of plants and small sculptures and paintings by other artists, lit to make their shadows visible from inside the structure. When entered, the interior becomes a stage where viewers are simultaneously audience and actors in a kind of shadow-play.
THE ARTISTS
Srijon Chowdhury (b. 1987 in Bangladesh) received his MFA from Otis College of Art and Design in 2013. Intended to act in the space between knowledge and emotion, his dream-like oil paintings consider the present moment as part of a larger, intuited (perhaps mythic) history. Chowdhury often uses repetition to examine the changes and removal that occur with each re-telling of history, a concept rooted in the experience of overlap and disjunction. He has exhibited in Los Angeles at Klowden Mann, Launch Gallery and Helen Bolsky Gallery, in Miami at Fredric Snitzer Gallery, and at The Gallery in Dhaka, Bangladesh.
Invited artists include:
Arnar Asgeirsson
Jack Bangerter
Sarah Burns
Alexander Collins
Scott Cowan
Katy Cowan
Liz Craft
Zoe Crosher
Roy Dowell
Alec Egan
Andreas Geruhig
Regina Herod
India Lawrence
Grace Eunchong Lee
Ellen Lesperance
Sofia Londono
Jason Bailer Losh
Erin Morrison
Kori Newkirk
Jorunn Hanke Ogstad
Fay Ray
Charlie Roberts
Allison Schulnik
Brian Strandberg
Katie Thomas
Dani Tull