Contemporary Spotlight: Erin Johnson

Telfair Museums presents Contemporary Spotlight exhibitions with artists Erin Johnson (American, b. 1985) and Ken Ueno (American, b. 1970). Both are creating new works that address questions and themes specific to our region, considering what it means to tell the history of a place.

Erin Johnson’s solo exhibition Heavy Water is a newly-commissioned body of work that investigates the social and political implications of South Carolina’s Savannah River Site (SRS), a U.S. nuclear weapons program facility and National Environmental Research Park. Johnson’s video and sound installation explores the relationship between SRS – a key disposition site for weapons-grade plutonium – and the free-ranging, wild dogs that live on the 310 square mile complex. Some ecologists suggest the dogs may be descendants of the first dogs that entered North America more than 8,000 years ago, and in Johnson’s work this epic ancient timeline converges with another – that of the precarious, untenable future of nuclear weapons and radioactive waste.

Ken Ueno will compose, direct, and inhabit a series of site-specific performances entitled Ghost Vault Triptych. Ueno is interested in composing what he calls both person-specific and site-specific music—intended for, and inspired by, one specific person, or narrative, or prompt. Live performances at several public sites will take place in October 2018.

Credit: Exhibition overview from museum website