Resident Curator: Abby Friend
Dates: 1/20/2018–2/17/2018

WITH NO MEMORIES NO TIES NO PHANTOMS TO TEND FOR, an exhibition that interrogated the historical and contemporary tradition of cultural theft through the lenses of memory and power.

Curated by Wave Pool’s first Curatorial Resident, Abby Friend. The show included work from local and national artists through various means of cultural production such as video, sculpture, installation, writing and poster art.  

The title of this exhibition is an excerpt from Eunsong Kim’s essay “Found, Found, Found: Lived, Lived, Lived,” a brilliant piece of cultural criticism regarding Carrie Mae Weem’s series From Here I Saw What Happened and I Cried. A beautiful and vulnerable indictment of the American tradition of cultural theft, historical and contemporary genocide, and the ways that different cultures carry that tradition of violence through their memory and their loss, Kim’s essay goes far deeper than any simple investigation or argument against cultural appropriation.

The exhibition, titled after Kim’s words, was a look at American history, our political and personal relationships with colonialism, and the ways that settler colonialism has affected our personal and collective ability to recall and reconcile, identity, memory, ownership, and power.

Aiming to create a point of access where the audience can interact with the complex intersections of cultural theft and settler colonialism, Friend curated a show in which artists use their voices and bodies to create art that is unafraid of confrontation and offers space for contemplation and dialogue.

Contributing artist included: M’Shinda Imani Abdullah-Broaddus, Aalap Bommaraju, Lukaza Branfman-Verissimo, Arthur Brum, Liz Cambron, Demian DinéYazhi’, Zachary Hutchinson, Merritt Johnson, Eunsong Kim, Oliverio Rodriguez, Isabel Solá and Caleb Yono.

The Curatorial Residency Program is supported by the generosity of community contributions to the ArtsWave Campaign as well as through an ArtSTART award from the Ohio Arts Council, which receives support from the State of Ohio and the National Endowment for the Arts.