Art at the JHI

Morphing Land, Impalpable Currents

Presented in conjunction with the Jackman Humanities Institute’s 2024-25 research theme—Undergrounds/Underworlds.

Curated by Yantong Li

Morphing Land, Impalpable Currents posits the underground as a rhizomatic commons to consider the imperceptible nexuses within a fractured land of colonial extraction. Through the works of Parastoo Anoushahpour, Faraz Anoushahpour, Ryan Ferko, Alvin Luong, Sanaz Sohrabi and Beichen Zhang, the underground is transformed into a site that collapses temporal and spatial distance, bringing together seemingly disjointed constellations of colonial and environmental discourses.

Foregrounding imperial complicity as an ethnographic site, Sanaz Sohrabi’s archival dig of West Asia’s petro-utopia resonates with Beichen Zhang’s voyage of tele-modernities in the South China Sea. In the momentary surge where crude oil crosses over undersea cables, monopolies of colonial extraction are transformed into false utopias. Moreover, the attritional lethalities enacted through practices of extraction exist at the peripheries of different regional histories. In the work of Alvin Luong, the remnants of the real estate bubble in Ho Chi Minh City fold fragments of war and resistance into a possible future underwater due to sea level rise. In a montage of suburban images by Parastoo Anoushahpour, Faraz Anoushahpour, and Ryan Ferko, fabulations of teenage zombie frenzies and eugenic sentiments about a Holstein cow coexist with realities of uranium poisoning on native lands.

From rare earth minerals to undersea infrastructures subterranean petroleum sites to suburban sewage holes, the morphing landscape of colonial extraction reveals amnesias of a past rendered invisible to the optics, hidden underground and growing hauntingly present the deeper we move. The underground sites of extractive regimes, with their distinct localities, bring into conversation the geophysical, geopolitical, and geological repercussions of neoliberalism, colonialism, militarism, and the climate crisis.

About the Curator

Yantong Li (b. 1998) is curator, researcher, and artist based in Toronto, Canada. He is an MVS Curatorial Studies candidate at the University of Toronto. Li works at the intersection of global infrastructure, geopolitics, regional folklore, and decolonization. His collaborative works and curatorial projects have been shown internationally at venues including the Curatorial Awards at Jimei x Arles International Photography Festival (Xiamen, China, 2022); Singapore International Photography Festival (Singapore, 2022); Durian-Durian: the First Trans-Southeast Asia Triennial, (Guangzhou, China, 2023); and The New Gallery (Canada, 2024).

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Credits from top left, clockwise: 1. Sanaz Sohrabi, Future Relics (2021–ongoing). Digital collage, manual superimposed inkjet prints on matt paper, size variable. Courtesy of the artist. 2. Beichen Zhang, The sun rises, the Great Northern Telegraphy Station sinks into the sea: Balcony and Frogs, 2022. Print on rubber, variable dimensions. Courtesy of the artist. 3. Alvin Luong, A Voluminous Crush, 2021-2022. Photography printed on tarp. Courtesy of The Rockefeller Foundation and the artist. 4. Alvin Luong, Hole Story, 2019-2023. Video. Courtesy of the artist. 5. Sanaz Sohrabi, Future Relics (2021–ongoing). Digital collage, manual superimposed inkjet prints on matt paper, size variable. Courtesy of the artist.

 

Morphing Land, Impalpable Currents is a co-production of the Art Museum and the Jackman Humanities Institute that is on display from September 11, 2024 to June 30, 2025.

The exhibition is open to the public after September 11, 2024 during regular business hours - Monday to Friday from 9am to 4pm. Tip: Call ahead (416-978-7415) if you are planning to come see the exhibition to make sure that all works are accessible. Since the JHI is a working space, some of the rooms may be in use.

Jackman Humanities Institute
Tenth Floor, Jackman Humanities Building
170 St. George St., Toronto, ON, M5R 2M8

We are grateful for the contributions of the Art Museum, both financial and in-kind, through the contribution of expertise, planning and implementation. The curator—Yantong Li—is a student in the MVS Curatorial Studies program at the John M. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape and Design, and has produced this show under the faculty supervision of Professor Barbara Fischer.

The Art Museum team that made this exhibition possible, extending their normal frame of work, includes:

  • Maureen Smith, Business Coordinator (finance and administration)
  • Marianne Rellin, Communications Coordinator (publication and didactics)
  • Dan Hunt, Assistant Coordinator, Exhibitions and Projects (Installation and Logistics)
  • Micah Donovan, Exhibitions and Projects Coordinator

This exhibition would not be possible without all of their collective work.

Operating and project support: the Art Museum, the Canada Council for the Arts, the Ontario Arts Council, and the Jackman Humanities Institute.