Warm Worlds and Otherwise: Brittany Nelson and Danishta Rivero

Exhibition Website

Oct 5 2018 - Dec 7 2018

Brittany Nelson’s work appropriates and distorts processes from nineteenth-century photography to question representation as photographic ideal. In chemically manipulating traditional mordançage and tintype techniques, she causes unprecedented reactions in the materials which result in abstract imagery. In her most recent practice, Nelson (American, born 1984) borrows from found material such as NASA photographs of the surface of Mars. The pictures were taken by the Opportunity rover as it looks back at its own tracks while it is still roaming the planet more than fourteen years after its mission was supposed to be completed. By applying techniques such as the pictorial bromoil method to these images, she translates between analog and digital media, resulting in prints that warp not only the surface and constitutive photographic features but also question the content on view.

Nelson draws on science fiction, technological utopias, spaceflight, and time travel, moving away from the nostalgia often accompanying the resuscitation of photographic procedures. In the legacy of feminist and queer approaches to abstraction, Nelson urges us to reconsider the aesthetics and politics of representation. In this exhibition, she collaborates with the musician, sound artist, and vocalist Danishta Rivero (American, born 1978) on a live performance calling to mind messages sent back to Earth from outer space, resonating with the works on view.

Credit: Exhibition overview from museum website

  • Photography
  • American
  • Brittany Nelson
  • Danishta Rivero

Exhibition Venues & Dates