How Do We Project?
An Experimental Lensed Based Work
Presented by: Pedro Wainer & Troels Steenholdt Heiredal
Opening: June 24, 5pm-9pm
Exhibition Dates: June 24th - August 3rd, 2022
Gallery Hours: 7 Days a week, 10am-5pm, or by appointment.
How do we project?
What are we capturing?
Where do we make sense of the world?
We see with our brains, not our eyes. The brain makes up most of what it sees, based on its assumptions and adapted learning; thus, we really don’t see all that much of the world—the brain creates it for us. The eyes only concern themselves with discrepancies: things out of place or said differently, the unexpected fragments of projections the brain had anticipated to be whole.
The Clemente is pleased to present “How Do We Project?”, an immersive installation and new way of experiencing art. The installation engages our eyes, and makes us aware that we are looking at something, we are here now and involved in the viewing experience.
Artists Pedro Wainer and Troels Steenholdt Heiredal have transformed Studio 406 into a large, multi-lensed camera obscura that is equal parts installation and performance platform. A wall divides the space. One side is a light-filled space dedicated to art objects and performances. The other is a dark room for the audience, where multiple lenses project different views of the objects and performances. The audience is invited to play with the lenses—opening, closing, turning, tilting, moving in and out—and to manipulate a series of projection screens. They can move, roll, curve, scatter, modulate, crease, lift, arrange screens in the dark room. In doing so, the audience becomes the other half of the performance.
The opening on June 24, 2022, will feature a special music and visual performance by multidisciplinary artist and producer Kiatre, who will turn the camera space into an immersive experience, inviting the audience into their own emotional landscape. Additional performers and artists from The Clemente community will show works throughout the exhibit period, to foster new connections across communities.
“How Do We Project?” seeks to deepen our awareness of how we each perceive our worlds. How do we interact with the information constantly hurling towards us? How do we establish greater autonomy over the surfaces with which we engage with the world? Only in bringing awareness to our perceptions can we become active, discerning viewers.
Pedro Wainer
Argentine born in Mexico City in 1975. He studied Filmmaking, Photography and Dramaturgy at Eliseo Subiela’s Professional Film School (1995) and the New York Film Academy (2001), among others. He focuses his individual practice within experimental cinema and photography from an object-oriented perspective, emphasizing the materiality and functioning of devices he uses to work.
Since 2003, he has been a founder and member of ´Provisorio Permanente´ art collective, with whom he won the second prize in the 2005 Curriculum Cero at Ruth Benzacar Art Gallery competition, participated in the 7th MERCOSUR Biennial (2009) and the Performance Biennial (2015). He has participated at Creative Capital, Taller Profesional para Artistas (New York, NY, 2020), Penumbra Foundation, Workspace Program (New York, NY, 2019) and Arts Letters and Numbers Residency (Averill Park, NY, 2017).
His work has been exhibited at The Clemente Soto Velez Cultural & Educational Center, (New York, NY, 2021); The Loisaida Center, (New York, NY, 2019); Museo de Artes Plásticas Eduardo Sívori, (Buenos Aires, ARG, 2018); Little Berlin Gallery (Philadelphia, PA, 2017); MAR Museo de Arte Contemporáneo (Mar del Plata, ARG, 2017); Shirley Fiterman Art Center BMCC-CUNY (New York, NY, 2016); Museo Emilio Caraffa (Córdoba, ARG, 2016); Museo de Arte Moderno de Buenos Aires (Buenos Aires, ARG, 2012); Centro Cultural de España en Buenos Aires (Buenos Aires, ARG, 2008); among others.
Troels Steenholdt Heiredal
Through his photography, workshops, and large temporary constructions, Troels Steenholdt Heiredal reassembles the world, enabling people to reflect on how they relate to it.
Working highly interdisciplinary, spanning from the written word through photography and camera constructions to large scale architectural spaces, with a keen sense for the small detail and tactility.
In 2019, Troels learned that he is in the autism spectrum. He has since been examining his life and works with new eyes to understand how neurodivergence shapes the way he sees and responds to the world. In his 2020 exhibition “Looking Into Looking”, he explored the relation between his constant rebuilding of the world in his art—layer by layer—is a direct response to how he understands it.
Troels is a founding fellow at Arts Letters & Numbers and an invited guest critic at Cornell University, RISD, and The Cooper Union. He has worked, exhibited, and lectured in the US, Argentina, Colombia, Aruba, The Dominican Republic, and Denmark, including at Kunsthal Charlottenborg and the Copenhagen Metro. He holds a Bsc in Architectural Engineering from the Technical University of Denmark and a Masters in Architecture from Aarhus School of Architecture.
Troels was born and raised in Toftlund, a Danish village of 3000, and is currently living on Lenape Land occupied territory now known as Brooklyn, NY, USA.
Kiatre
Kiatre is a black multidisciplinary artist and producer based in Brooklyn. His work enables you to explore yourself and your own emotional landscape. He invites you to let go of preconceived notions of what a performance or an album is, instead to approach with curiosity.