Event
Objects To Remember You By: Collections From SundownPost an Event »
Three30Forty
October 2 - October 31, 2015Info
330 40th Street Oakland, CA 94609 Google Map »Reception
October 2, 2015 6:00 pm to 9:00 pm
Kija Lucas, 2015
Kija Lucas is interested in specificity. Her various photographic examinations document the flora and terroir of her ancestral homelands, or starkly present the loveworn sentimental objects of friends and strangers. Items like a sock, a rosary, or candy wrapper that would be valueless to any other person are deeply meaningful to one person. When Lucas transforms those items into photographs she strips them of utility; what’s apparent then is an intimate human history and what’s missing is the person that gave the object its shape, patina, and meaning. Whether documenting botanicals or cherished ephemera, specificity is at the heart of her practice. In Objects to Remember You By: Collections from Sundown, Lucas’ curiosity is directed at the household items collected by her grandmother who suffers from Alzheimer’s disease. Sundown here refers to both Sundowner’s Syndrome, a symptom of the disease, and sundown as a metaphor for end of life. In her present sundown state, Lucas’ grandmother will gather up items deemed important to her in the moment, such as a pile of mail, a stack of coats, or a suitcase packed with clothing and other items for a perceived journey. These collections, undoubtedly seen as necessities in the moment, are later discarded and their intended purpose probably forgotten. Lucas puts the piles, collections, and bags with their carefully packed contents on display, leaving the viewer to wonder why they were chosen and where they were headed, to reflect on the persistence of objects within our psyche, and the intricacies that lead to the invisible weight we give to simple objects.