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Flattened Flora: A Compass Sampler: Faysal Altunbozar & E. Saffronia Downing

Opening Friday, April 15th 6–9pm

we wild and wandering

planetary profusions

together track the traces

of soles stitching soils

floras feeling footholds

marks mapping memories

paces patterning places

of souls sowing seedlings

fingers finding features

mutations making matters

potentials planting patterns

we wild and wandering, walk

We navigate with a compass. An iron laden magnet situates our bodies in the landscape. The same iron, earthly matter, is found in our blood. Flattened Flora; A Compass Sampler is a map that orients toward a planet engraved by time. Saffronia collects deep-time deposits to design a quilt that grounds the exhibition in human geology. While Faysal plants seeds into shoe soles, initiating a floristic foray into our entangled wildness. To walk through the exhibition is to enmesh oneself in the earth’s lively crust – the body a continuum of earth’s multifaceted mind in matter.

– Rosemary Holliday Hall   

Saffronia Downing (b. 1992, Baltimore) makes site-specific ceramic sculpture to explore entanglements between the built and natural worlds. She received her BA in Studio Art from Hampshire College and her MFA in Ceramics from School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Downing is the recipient of awards and residencies such as the Oxbow School of Art Fellowship, ACRE Residency, and Salem Art Works Studio Artist Residency. She is currently a residential fellow at theLunder Institute for American Artin Waterville, ME.

Faysal Altun­bozar (b. 1993, Istan­bul), is an inter­dis­ci­pli­nary artist who creates discrete objects and spatial interventions that layer cultural histories and playful allusions to the body in order to reframe dichotomies of power and pleasure. An MFA recip­i­ent from the School of the Art Insti­tute of Chica­go, his work has been exhib­it­ed in Turkey, Italy, the Nether­lands, and the Unit­ed States. Faysal His recent solo and duo exhi­bi­tions were pre­sent­ed at Prairie (Chicago, USA), Space P11 (Chicago, USA, and Amazigh Con­tem­po­rary (Chicago, USA & Amsterdam, NL). He is the recip­i­ent of the John W. Kur­tich Trav­el Fel­low­ship, Shapiro Cen­ter Grad­u­ate Research Fel­low­ship Award, and New Artist Soci­ety Schol­ar­ship. He is living and working in London, UK.