Sanctuary of the Aftermath Curated by Jason Jenn and Vojislav Radovanović Featuring works by Nica Aquino, Joseph Carrillo, Jeff Frost, Anita Getzler, David Hollen, Jason Jenn, Ibuki Kuramochi, Rosalyn Myles, Vojislav Radovanović, Alison Ragguette, and Kayla Tange. View the virtual exhibition, videos, and additional photos at angelsgateart.org Images courtesy of L.A. Art Documents Sanctuary of the Aftermath is an exhibition of Angels Gate Cultural Center, with generous support from WE RISE, made possible by the Los Angeles County Department of Mental Health. Sanctuary of the Aftermath Curatorial Statement Art and spirituality have been intertwined since their origins. Only in recent centuries have secular motivations displaced Art’s primary function of expressing and connecting with the transcendent. Sanctuary of the Aftermath affirms the sacred role of art, and redefines the gallery as a place to experience solace during troubled times. The exhibition presents artworks demonstrating a strong spiritual component in their creation while addressing some of the challenges of contemporary existence. Site-specific installation art, video art, and auditory art are highlighted within an immersive atmosphere, which invites safe engagement to explore the issues and make personal discoveries. The current pandemic has resulted in estrangement from both the social and the natural world. After our prolonged period of physical separation and quarantine, the exhibition investigates how art can create new channels for connection. The exhibition provides a space that is simultaneously removed from and deeply connected to our shared reality. The works form a dialogue with perspectives on the cycles of life, entropy, destruction, death, memorial, and rebirth. Beauty is used as a tool, encouraging visitors to view the world anew. Sanctuary of the Aftermath offers an opportunity to reflect upon the artificial divisions as well as the innate relationships between humanity and nature. Hailing from diverse backgrounds, the artists of the exhibition take inspiration from various timeless practices and historical approaches. However, rather than adhering to a particular institutionalized religious form, the artists utilize their own unique interpretations of traditional methodologies. They employ meditative, introspective, interactive, and sometimes visionary approaches in pursuit of the numinous. The journey of making works of art is an organic experience, which evolves over time. It is sometimes premeditated, sometimes serendipitous, but always driven by an intuitive impulse. The personal path uncovers the universal. For many of the artists herein, it is a therapeutic process, inviting the viewer to share in the result. Departing from the usual materialistic goals of society, the exhibition embraces a communal need for more ritual-like experiences. Many of the pieces on view were designed for this specific opportunity, inspired by this particularly unusual era. During a time of intense socio-political injustice, environmental disaster, rapid technological changes, prolonged physical isolation, and anxiety - art can be a remedy. - Jason Jenn and Vojislav Radovanović Sanctuary of the Aftermath Image courtesy of L.A. Art Documents Nica Aquino A 2020 Reflection Veil of Forgetfulness Altar installation: 2 single channel Beaded curtain, 2021 videos, ocean audio, LED candles, digital self-portrait on printer paper, Mama Mary, Pray for Us beaded curtain on bamboo, real and digital self-portrait on printer paper, fake flowers, plants, personal items, 2020 2021 Danum (Water) #1 Video, 2018 5:37 minutes Isolation 2020 Video, 2020 3:35 minutes Sanctuary of the Aftermath Nica Aquino It's 2050. Half of my friends and family were wiped out due to a deadly virus that spread around the world. We needed a fresh start, so we packed our family up & moved to a Spanish coastal town. With the little savings, we built running a makeshift convenience store out of my ancestral home. Water levels keep rising due to global warming. We were able to rent a cheap house by an ocean that gradually submerges adjacent homes. Here we are, the best we could do. We'll enjoy the ocean view & breeze before we lose our home to the water one day. I just got home from work. It's 13:00; time to relax. I turn on the TV & they are playing a nature documentary from 2020. Perfect for watching and unwinding before my siesta. As I sit here, relaxing & watching this documentary, I remember 2020. My family & I pray to Mama Mary every day that our earth and people will heal one day. -Vera Icona 20/05/2050 Isolation 2020: I filmed this footage for an online class I taught last year and decided to repurpose it. A friend posted a silly video game meme that inspired me to make this video. Really, I just wanted an excuse to listen to this relaxing song from one of my favourite games growing up. Fun fact: I was raised on video games. My parents were strict and didn’t let me go out. My mother was busy working 7 days a week, back-to-back jobs, going to her part- time job on the weekends and weeknights after her full-time day job. My dad was already well into his fifties when I was born, so he was much too old and tired to raise a little kid. I’m the youngest of 7, but grew up an only child. My older brother handed me down his old video games to keep me occupied. Playing video games together, or watching him play, is one of my favourite childhood memories with my brother, the little time we did get to spend together. Fast forward to more recently: After my accident and multiple surgeries, I was in agonizing pain and was disoriented, dizzy and sick from my meds. I tried everything to keep my mind off the pain. Watching my favourite shows, reading, drawing, etc. Nothing distracted me enough. My best friend lent me her Nintendo DS and that was the first time I had played video games in a really long time. It kept my mind so occupied, the pain was hardly on my mind. Now during isolation, I’ve been playing a lot and honestly, it makes me happy. Building my dream world, the escapism, connecting with friends in ways we can’t right now, being someone else. I don’t know. People think my affinity for video games is Sanctuary of the Aftermath Nica Aquino silly. But what people don’t realize is, the stories, the art, the music and gameplay have gotten me through some hard times. I hope this song and footage from my neighbourhood relax you all during these tense times. (I sampled the audio from Nobuo Uematsu from the FFVIII game.) Veil of Forgetfulness: Before one's soul descends onto planet earth to carry out its mortal life, one must bear the Veil of Forgetfulness to forget their premortal life. It defines the binary between mortality and a world without end. Once bearing the Veil of Forgetfulness, you no longer remember your life in the spirit world and are born into a human vehicle. Living a human existence through the veil, one must then go through the motions of learning all of a mortal's life lessons and undergo a mission of rediscovery. Oftentimes this includes experiencing suffering and darkness in order to find ourselves again. Like the rest of us, we must limp through this life of suffering to recover these memories and find the light again. Danum (Water) #1: Originally part of my installation “Memory Room,” Danum (Water) #1 is a reflection of my ancestral heritage as a diasporic Ilokana. All footage was shot in my ancestral homeland of so-called La Union, in the Northern Philippines. By lending visual queues to the work through water, it expresses our identity as Ilokanos and our proximity to many bodies of water and the healing properties of water in my works. (I sampled the audio from Nobuo Uematsu from the FFVIII game.) Biography Nica Aquino (b. 1990, Los Angeles) is a practicing visual artist and curator. She received her BFA in Photo from the Pacific Northwest College of Art (Portland, OR) and her MA in Contemporary Visual Culture from the School of Art at Manchester Metropolitan University (United Kingdom). Her work has been shown locally, nationally and internationally. In her artwork, she primarily experiments with 35mm analogue photography, just documenting life as she sees it. No fancy bells and whistles, no manipulations, just a cheap point and shoot camera (the exact same model from her childhood), cheap film and what’s in front of her at the time. She believes art making should be accessible, and that you don’t always need the newest fanciest toys to create something meaningful. She also experiments with textiles, video and sound to create interactive, intimate and very personal installations that often reference memory, nostalgia, and different tiers of loss ranging from death, historical amnesia to post-colonial melancholia. This work is often rooted in her experience as a diasporic Ilokana (“Filipina”). Sanctuary of the Aftermath Nica Aquino Aside from spending her early adolescence moving between states & continents, Nica grew up within immigrant, working class inner-city neighborhoods on the cusps of Koreatown, Pico-Union & Mid-City, Los Angeles. She is now residing in the Northeast LA community, where she works as a full-time curator and freelance arts administrator. In her curatorial practice, Nica aims to provide a platform for artists of color and others navigating feelings of unbelonging. As an individual that has had the opportunity to get educated and access many resources, she knows it is her responsibility as an artist and curator to use her privilege to uplift others also existing within the margins, and lend visibility to the communities and stories experiencing erasure. _ Alternative gallery project: mataartgallery.org Learn more and view additional works at: nicaaquino.com, instagram.com/nica_aquino, nicaaquino.tumblr.com Sanctuary of the Aftermath Image courtesy of L.A.