Mapping

Happy New Year. I hope the 2021 will bring bright hopes, good health, peace and justice for all of us. As I write this, my mind is on Georgia right now.

Looking back on the epic year 2020, the highlight of my artistic activities was being able to install a solo show. Such things are difficult during the pandemic, but I enjoyed every minute of installing the show while wearing a mask. I was re-energized with this prospect of sharing my work with people (in-person and in real space) and realized how important it was for me to feel connected this way. Even though the exhibit was open to the Rivers School community only, but not to the public due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the exhibit was enjoyed by students and faculty at the Rivers School. I particularly enjoyed several positive comments from the students while I was installing “Field Notes, II,” a room-size installation in one of the galleries. 

 

Field Notes, II
Archival pigment print on Tyvek and vellum
98"x 240"x 180"
2016 - 2020

In order to share my work beyond the Rivers School community, I created a virtual exhibit site, so that anybody can view the exhibit from the comfort of their home.

“Mapping” opened at the Rivers School in Weston, Massachusetts on October 19th. 

 

"Extinction Studies" series

As an artist, making art in the studio has been tremendously helpful for me in sustaining a sense of normalcy in my life during the pandemic. My work kept me grounded, so to speak, literally working on a drawing on the floor every day. The life of confinement also gave me new ways of thinking and looking at my old work, and I saw it as an opportunity to experiment with my old work.
 
I presented a couple of new works and new “old” works in this exhibit. The new works are two map drawings from “Extinction Studies” series that are based on historical maps of the Adirondacks in northern New York state.

 

Map of Adirondack Wilderness, 1888

India ink, walnut ink, and ink on paper

86"x 70" (diptych)

2019

 

Two new “old” pieces came out of my reflection on science and belief during the pandemic. “Field Notes, II” is an installation that is composed with images of scientific writings that were hand traced from the whiteboards during my residency at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard in 2016–2017. While there I learned that science is rigorous. Scientific knowledge as we come to know it is the result of countless days, months, and years of experiments by scientists working in the lab. Science, as I observed, is driven by the desire to understand the unknown and the courage to go in search of things that might not be knowable. This was where I, as an artist, felt closely in sync with scientists about the way we do our work. This installation, “Field Notes, II,” with layers of the scientific ideas and writings being laid on the floor, calls attention to what makes the groundwork for future scientific discoveries.

 

Field Notes, II, detail

When there are no treatments available, what do we do, where do we go, and how do we deal with the disease, both physically and mentally? I have been asking myself these questions since the pandemic started. We’ve been living with these questions for several months now. In “Accrescence,” which means continual growth, magic spells from ancient medical papyrus were deployed to create new meanings. I included  these magic spells in my work in the past, but the pandemic made me go back to them and look at them in a different way. In this iteration, magic spells (laser cut on vellum) are presented by layering old and found papers that have histories and meanings for me into new and singular works. In this work, layering became important to me. Adding layers of histories to these magic spells, our desire to want to believe in medical treatment is never lost then or now, whether magic spells for ancient people or prayers and hope for vaccines during the pandemic in the 21st century. To me, these pieces speak quietly as a prayer.

 

Accrescence
Installation view
Laser cut on vellum and found papers
Approx. 20"x 14" each
2016-2020

Mapping is one way we come to understand the world by organizing and systemizing layers of information. This organizing helps us understand the scope of data and information in a visual way. But maps do not remain unchanged. To an artist, maps are starting points for new interpretations, experiments, inventions, and actions. In this exhibit, I presented several different bodies of work that are related to mapping and maps. The collecting and organizing of layers of information in science, and the weaving of histories can be seen as my attempt to understand the unknown as well as the time we are in.

 

Thank you for reading and for your ongoing support.
Please stay safe and healthy.

 

 

Stories retold: Artist-in-Residence Exhibit at Broad Institute

Stories retold: Artist-in-Residence Exhibit

Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard

415 Main Street

Cambridge, MA

April 18 – August 24, 2017

The concept of the passage of time as a subject for inquiry is at the core of Naoe Suzuki’s exploration in the work currently on public view in the main lobby at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard. Weaving past and present together, Suzuki contemplates data mining, knowledge, history, and our belief systems. Stories retold, an exhibit of selected works completed after being selected as the Broad Institute’s fifth artist-in-residence (video), reflects her fascination with, and observation of the scientific community where she has been immersed since April of 2016.

In the light-filled lobby of the Broad Institute’s Main Street building, Suzuki has installed nearly 200 brightly-colored decals on the floor and stairs. Close examination reveals that each circular shape contains images similar to organisms one might observe in a microscope. The decals snake around to form three circular shapes on the floor, then trail up the stairs to the mezzanine level.

This site-specific installation, Stories retold, examines the ancient roots of our belief systems around the treatment of disease. Suzuki combines and overlays images of magic spells she traced from a copy of the Edwin Smith papyrus—the oldest medical textbook to include prognosis in the history of civilization. The papyrus is from ancient Egypt, 1600 BC, and the spells are written in hieratic, a form of ancient Egyptian writing. These magic spells were used as medical treatments in the ancient world. Suzuki traced the magic spells by hand and made them into drawings first, then she made laser cut versions on vellum paper. Suzuki then created the “microscopic” views of ancient magic spells by scanning and editing the laser cut drawings in Photoshop.

The shape on the floor was inspired by the artistic rendering of the Congo River by Stephen Gire, then a Broad Institute researcher who worked in the Congo during the Ebola outbreak. In that project, Gire digitally rendered the river to form the shape of the Ebola virus in the forest suggesting its ancient origin, which dates back to between 16 and 23 million years ago.

Suzuki contemplates our ancient beliefs about medicine in a time when science, medicine, and technology are all accelerating at a rate that is unprecedented in human history. Bridging together the layers of history, she 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 we may have lost, and what we still believe.

On the mezzanine level, a large horizontal scroll drawing titled, Unapologetic work of a data parasite and a digital slide presentation, Field Notes, bring the viewers into the present.

Using as source material the artist’s tracings of the writings on the whiteboards at the Broad, Suzuki retraced her original tracings— then enlarged, reduced, repeated and sliced as she saw fit to create the composition. It was composed in a flow, following the energy that she felt from the original marks.

"Unapologetic work of a data parasite"
45"x 216", Mineral pigment, gouache, color pencil, and graphite on paper
2016

Field Notes juxtaposes the scanned images of traced writings from the whiteboards, which were further edited in Photoshop, with bits of overheard conversation. The piece subtly critiques the challenges of data sharing in a scientific community, while shedding light onto scientists’ genuine enthusiasm and joy as well as frustrations. It is composed as “a day in the life” of a scientist.

“As an artist, the scientists’ challenges and hard work resonated with me. Most of the time, being an artist or a scientist involves a lot of hard work. We often occupy uncertain space, trying to figure out a path to discovery or creation. It is in this dark place where we struggle, but simultaneously we must feel comfortable being in this place.”

Still from "Field Notes"

In all of the work presented at the Broad Institute, Suzuki’s gesture of tracing seems to honor the original manuscripts or writings. Her deliberately slow process of transferring these writings is a meditation on our progress. “Scholars believe that in ancient Egypt when the Edwin Smith papyrus was written, the same content was copied over many times, over the span of 200 or 300 years. This means that the methods of diagnosing and treating patients did not change significantly for a couple of hundred years,” said Suzuki. “Look at what’s happening now in our time. The sequencing of the human genome was completed a little over fifteen years ago, and we’re now talking about precision medicine. Things have been moving at exponential speed in science, medicine, and technology in the last few decades.”

Suzuki’s artistic practice allows us pause for a moment in the world where everything seems to be moving fast.

About Naoe Suzuki

Naoe Suzuki is a visual artist based in Waltham, MA. Suzuki received an MFA from Massachusetts College of Art and Design in 1997. She has been a recipient of many grants including the Pollock-Krasner Foundation, Massachusetts Cultural Council, and Berkshire Taconic Community Foundation. Watch the video to learn more about her project at the Broad Institute.

About  the Broad Institute Artist-in-Residence program

The Broad's artist-in-residence program lies at the intersection of science and art. The program allows revolutionary scientists and forward-thinking artists to work, communicate, and learn together to benefit both science and art, spurring the creative thinking that drives innovation. Naoe Suzuki is the Institute’s fifth artist-in-residence. Learn more about their art, their perspectives, and their experience at the Broad.