DARK ROOM:
Kayla Tange’s InTEnTIONS
September 21 — November 16, 2019
Inspired by childhood innocence, the meditative energy of Japanese Zen gardens, and the impermanence of Tibetan sand mandalas, artist Kayla Tange invites visitors to play, draw, and write intentions in an illuminated sand box.
ARTIST STATEMENT
Intentions was originally created as a dedicated to the summer solstice and new beginnings, a safe space for creating intentions for the day year or life or for others with the idea of being the one who clears for the next person. It evolved into a multi-sensory interactive installation which becomes activated by each viewer. The soundscape was created by Brent Kiser and composed cello piece by Ro Rowan with the inspiration of a dissonant past and a hopeful future.
The sandbox is built from past performance relics. The Plexiglas from my very first show Confession Box, the lights from the last Defining Boundaries. This had significance for me as it represents the last 4 years of my life, art and hundreds of collected stories.
Intentions is inspired by the meditative elements of the Japanese Zen garden, incorporating the freedom and imagination on a childhood playground and the beauty and impermanence of clearing each intention by the Tibetan sand mandala. Each of the four corners is sprinkled with lavender, an herb used during the solstice believed to banish worries. The sand when written in or moved makes the light shine through, giving power to the words in the dark room. The rocks in the sandbox have a small circle or the word now drawn on them as symbols of cycles, wholeness and eternity representing the present.
KAYLA TANGE
Kayla Tange was born in South Korea and adopted at age six months by a Japanese American family in Lemoore, California. After high school she moved to Los Angeles where her love for photography slowly progressed into a conceptual performance practice where installation and film are sometimes incorporated. Boundaries, displacement, transformation, sexuality and identity are often recurring themes in her work. Tange has had performances at Coagula Curatorial, Human Resources, Highways Performance Space, New York Burlesque Festival and Asian Burlesque Extravaganza and performed alongside Ron Athey, Taylor Mac and Sheree Rose. She is the co-producer of Dear Mother (2017) —a short film about her Korean adoption and relationship to performance. Dear Mother has shown at the the Korean American Film Festival New York, Asian Pacific Film Festival in Los Angeles, San Francisco Short Doc Fest and Boston Asian American Film Festival.
Exhibition curated by Jason Jenn
Photos of visitor participation and various creations from the run of the exhibition
