Lost and Found opens at the Boston Arts Academy

From October 5 – November 15, 2017, the Boston Arts Academy will present Lost and Found, an exhibition by Naoe Suzuki.

Suzuki will be presenting Lost and Found, the second installment of a three-part project, completed during her tenure as artist in residence at Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard. Observations made during her appointment inside this dynamic biomedical research institute led Suzuki to investigate what has been lost in the history of science and medicine while making progress — eventually leading her to the Edwin Smith Papyrus, the oldest medical textbook from 1,600 BC, which includes prognosis for the first time in recorded history. On the verso, magic spells were introduced as medical treatment in ancient Egypt.

Fascinated with this information, Suzuki created a number of works incorporating the images of magic spells along with the current scientific information including the paper on the Human Genome Project published in 2001, and numerous writings she traced from the whiteboards around the Broad Institute.

Suzuki explores the interconnectedness of meaning between knowledge and belief, bringing forth forgotten beliefs—the magic spells that were mostly written on the verso side of the papyrus—and asks us: What is legitimate? What might we have lost? What do we still believe? and What do we hope to find? These magic spells, which are undecipherable to untrained eye, operate as a visual form, in a similar way to technical scientific writings that are difficult to understand to a layperson.

Courtesy of the Broad Institute, Suzuki includes decontaminated lab equipment in the exhibit. Suzuki also uses card catalog cabinets, deaccessioned from the Harvard Fine Arts Library, to hold a collection of petri dishes that contain laser cut pieces of magic spells.

At the Boston Arts Academy (BAA,) Suzuki will work inside the gallery and spend nearly a month as the artist in residence, continuing to explore the concept of “lost and found” with students. A manual typewriter is set up on the 4^th floor with a question on the wall, “What have you lost that you want to find again?” The artist asks students to think about this question and to respond by typing on a manual typewriter, which itself is a lost device no longer commonly used.

The exhibit, Lost and Found will open on Thursday, October 5^th. An opening reception will be held on Thursday, October 12^th from 5-7 pm. The art gallery is open to the public during school hours. The Artist-in-Residence program at BAA was made possible through the Polly Thayer Starr Charitable Trust.

Lost and Found

Boston Arts Academy

174 Ipswich Street, Boston, MA. Tel: 617.635.6470

School hours:

Monday through Friday • 9am - 4pm (closed October 9 & November 10)

Boston Arts Academy (BAA) is Boston’s only public high school for the visual and performing arts, serving 450 students who reflect the diversity of Boston’s neighborhoods. 

Related exhibitions:

Stories retold, the first installment of Suzuki’s project completed during her appointment as the Broad Institute’s artist in residence, is installed in the institute’s main lobby through December 21, 2017.

Naoe Suzuki: Stories retold

Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard

415 Main Street, Cambridge, MA
Extended through December 21, 2017

Suzuki’s third installment of her project from her Broad Institute residency will be exhibited at the Cambridge School of Weston’s Red Wall Gallery.

With eyes open: Dreamcatchers (solo show) 
Cambridge School of Weston

Red Wall Gallery
Weston, MA
October 30 - December 20, 2017
Opening Reception: Saturday, November 11 • 2-5pm
Gallery Talk: Saturday, November 18 • 1-2pm

Stories retold: site-specific installation at the Broad Institute

I recently installed a site-specific installation titled “Stories retold” for the Artist in Residence Program’s exhibit at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard.

This installation combines images of magic spells that were traced from a copy of the Edwin Smith papyrus—the first medical textbook to include prognosis in the history of civilization. The papyrus is from ancient Egypt, 1600 BC. The script was written in hieratic, an ancient Egyptian form of writing. Most of the magic spells were written on the verso side of the papyrus. The images in this piece are constructed from traced magic spells that were used as treatments in ancient world.

The traced magic spells were made into drawings first, and then laser cut on vellum paper. The laser cut drawings on vellum paper were scanned and edited in Photoshop. The images on each decal contain ancient magic spells for various diseases. The sizes of the circles were based on three different sizes of petri dishes.

The shape on the floor was inspired by the artistic rendering of the Congo River by Stephen Gire, a researcher who worked in Congo during the Ebola outbreak. The river in his photograph takes shape of Ebola virus in the forest suggesting the ancient origin of the virus.

I’ve been thinking a lot about the power of words and beliefs in the past year, and thinking about connections to our ancient roots.

In this site-specific installation, I’m examining our ancient beliefs in medicine—what we have passed on for generations, what we have lost, what we have forgotten, what we have learned, and what we still believe.

"Stories retold" 

Site-specific installation

196 decals

2016 - 2017

“Stories retold” and other works will be on view in the lobby and mezzanine at the Broad Institute until the end of summer. The lobby and mezzanine are accessible to the public during the business hours.

Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard

415 Main Street

Cambridge, MA

Hours: Monday – Friday, 8am – 7pm