Dialogue of a Cultural Residency

Our collaboration with The Millenium Park Foundation explored the digital narrative of two wildly distinct artists exhibiting their textured practices within the Boeing Gallery in Chicago, IL. Documentation led by Dayson Roa, aligned varied threads between Christine Tarkowski and Edra Soto through their visual export and internal commitment to their craft.

Christine Tarkowski’s work in the South Gallery, is as extravagantly conjured as its title, taken from the 18th century British astronomer William Herschel, "When we call the Earth by way of distinction a planet and the Moon a satellite, we should consider whether we do not, in a certain sense, mistake the matter. Perhaps- and not unlikely - the Moon is the planet and the Earth the satellite! Are we not a larger moon to the Moon, than she is to us?" The startling presence of candy-colored cast glass boulders suspended above and about earthbound aggregate boulders, evokes a very strange, yet elemental landscape – which is ironically, very similar to our own environment, both natural and built. The installation, set down in the midst of the highly manicured, artificial garden of Millennium Park seems a gentle critique of what we do in cities when we build, exploit and re-present natural forms.

Christine Tarkowski is a Chicago based artist who works in a variety of mediums including sculpture, printed matter, photography and song. Her works range in scale from the ordinary to the monumental. Equally variable is her scope of production which incorporates the making of permanent architectural structures, cast models, textile yardage and temporary printed ephemera. Many of her recent works point toward the flotsam of western culture relative to systems of democracy, religion and capitalism. Those systems often intersect with or concern themes of conversion, salvation, and belief and are malleable systems relative to a believer’s desires.

Edra Soto (b. Puerto Rico) is an interdisciplinary artist, educator, curator, and co-director of the outdoor project space THE FRANKLIN. She is invested in creating and providing visual and educational models propelled by empathy and generosity. Her recent projects, which are motivated by civic and social actions, focus on fostering relationships with a wide range of communities.

Screenhouse, in the north Boeing Gallery, a 10-foot high pavilion-like structure constructed from approximately 400 charcoal hued, 12-inch cast concrete blocks, stems from an ongoing series that explores symbolic transplants of iron grills and decorative concrete screen blocks found throughout the Caribbean and the American South. These decorative screens, known as rejas and quiebrasoles, are ubiquitous in Soto’s birthplace in Puerto Rico. They provide homes with security and shade; yet admit breezes that cool interior living spaces. The designs of these screen forms can be found in almost infinite variety, and likely came to have their present form through sources in West African and European ornamental traditions. In Screenhouse, Soto transforms the quiebrasol form from a planar screen that divides public from private into a nearly fully enclosed, free standing structure that functions as both a sculptural object and a social gathering place.

Christine Tarkowski

Edra Soto

Christine Tarkowski

Edra Soto

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