Believing that all cultures, landmasses, and islands are connected underwater, my work navigates the diasporic and economic circulations between Asia and the Americas. I am interested in geopolitical peripheries lying in the long shadows of colonialism that, through the centuries, have often become islands floating in the fragmented diasporic memory. I shatter the silence enveloping smothered narratives, gender and racial inequalities, histories of othering, and erroneous social imaginaries through sculptural installations in public space, participatory performances, bridging communities, drawing, dissecting folk etymology, performance-lectures, olfactory art and virtual and augmented reality platforms. My visual vocabulary draws from a broad spectrum of materials including colonial aesthetics, 18th century botanical expeditions, marine biology, anthropology, visual culture, and populist myths.
To illustrate this process, in 2008, what began with a search for my family in Argentina led me to retrace the escape route of 19th century Asian coolie laborers through Peru’s plantations, highlands, and the Amazons. The results can be experienced through a trilingual publication, video, oral history interviews, and a Migratory Museum of artifacts from the journey. This interest in migration continues into prehistoric transpacific voyages that spread the Austronesian language throughout the Pacific, and sails into the Age of Exploration when the desire for spices launched thousands of ships and networked the first global economy.
BEATRICE GLOW is a New York-based interdisciplinary artist. Her practice comprises sculptural installations, trilingual publishing, and participatory and lecture performances. Her research mines the relationship between Asia and the Americas, investigating transpacific economic and cultural circulations, as well as persistent, romanticized notions of the exotic “other.” She earned a BFA in studio art from New York University, and is currently a Visiting Scholar in the University’s Asian/Pacific/American Institute. Recent activities include a residency at LES Studio Program, a program of Artists Alliance Inc., New York, NY; a solo project at Wave Hill, New York, NY; finalist for the Joan Mitchell Foundation Emerging Artist Award; digital publishing with the Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY; and lecture performances at Asia Society, New York, NY; and “My Art Guide: Venice Meeting Point, “56th Venice Biennale. Her work has been featured in recent exhibitions at the Bronx Museum of the Arts; Zebrastraat Gallery, Gent, Belgium; Cavin-Morris Gallery, New York, NY; El Museo del Barrio, New York, NY; and Museo de Arte Contemporaneo de Arequipa, Peru. In 2014, Glow received the Franklin Furnace Fund to organize the Floating Library, a pop-up public space with free programming aboard the Lilac Museum Steamship, New York, NY. As a Hemispheric Institute of Performance and Politics’ Council Member she also launched their Asian/Americas workgroup in 2014 at the Encuentro 2014 in Montreal. In 2008–9, she was awarded a Fulbright scholarship to pursue a research-creation project in Peru on Asian Latin America. She is currently curating an Indigenous Geography Exhibit and Lab at New York University, and is preparing for an upcoming solo exhibit at the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes de Chile in 2016.
Image: Rhunhattan [Tearoom], September 15-October 25th, 2015. Installation view, Sunroom Project Space, Wave Hill Public Garden and Cutlural Center, Bronx, NY. Acrylic and decal collage on ceramics, ink on paper, terracotta infused with scents of colonial commerce. Dimensions variable. Photo: Stefan Hagen