Angela Miskis and Akemi Takeda and Dario Mohr presented a collaborative installation for the Art in Odd Places festival. This took place at the vacant lot on 14th st between 6th and 7th next to Art of Our Century Gallery (137 W 14th st, New York, NY, 10011) . This installation is reflecting how different cultures process ideas of loss through veneration by creating memorials. This work is inspired by Miskis' new painting series "Converting Fear Into Energy," Akemi's reflections on the pandemic, the Black Lives Matter protests in 2020 and the AAIP experience regarding equity. Dario's contribution will be inspired in part by his 2021 solo show at MFTA titled “Archetypes: A Visual Soundtrack”. With each artist representing a different marginalized group in the US, they present "In Memory Of..." as a collective acknowledgement of a human experience that unites us all. This is an AnkhLave Arts Alliance submission.
Our allyship in creating this work will coincide with an exhibit curated by Katerina Levantis and Ali Haselbeck at the Art of Our Century Gallery, highlighting AAPI artists for AAPI heritage month. This exhibit is also in response to the political climate effecting AAPI communities today, and will feature AnkhLave Artists Kayo Shido and Akemi Takeda.
IN MEMORY OF...
Public art piece presented during the Art In Odd Places (AiOP) show
Angela Miskis (b. Ecuador, 1987) is visual artist and community organizer based in South East Queens. Her work is influenced by her family upbringing, dedication to social service, and building a healthier and more sustainable future in her immediate community. Angela Miskis graduated from the School of Visual Arts in 2013 with a degree in Visual and Critical Studies. Her honors include the Silas H. Rhodes scholarship (2011), and the Visual and Critical Studies Scholarship (2013) which awarded her a five-month artist in residence at the Leipzig International Art Programme (2014) in Germany. Recently, Miskis was awarded a residency at ChaShaMa's ChaNorth International Artists Program (2019) in Pine Plains, NY, and the ArtWorks Inc. Seminar Fellowship at the Jamaica Arts Center for Arts and Learning (2019 - 2020). She is currently a 2021-Create Change Fellow with the Laundromat Project in New York.
Dario Mohr is a New York City based interdisciplinary artist. Born in 1988, Mohr received a BFA from Buffalo State College (2010), and an MFA from The City College of New York (2019). He combines nostalgic personal objects of varying heights with found materials to form shrines. These occupy the space in varying ways, leaning against walls, hanging from the ceiling, and existing as free standing sculptures with an architectural aesthetic. They also contain altars with organic offerings, symbolically designating them as devotional objects. Although created from a personal vantage point, the work functions publicly to open the audience’s perspective to ways they can reimagine nostalgic objects as symbols for memories, people, and experiences that can take on a spirituality of their own when revered in a way that is decontextualized from religion.
Akemi Takeda: When I came to New York City from Japan 45 years ago, I was charmed by its streets, each corner or crevice like a still
life worth capturing. I used to spend a laborious amount of time silkscreening images of the city from photos, but these days I can easily recreate the same images with a digital camera. It is a different age now. I love the realism of photography, but I still love the handmade interpretations of drawing. The technology
behind photography has changed much over the years, but drawing has been a constant, for myself and perhaps humanity, too. Today my two loves merge in this series of work.