Postcommodity
ARTIST IN RESIDENCE: June 22, 2023 – July 2, 2023
About Postcommodity
Postcommodity was founded in 2007 by Twist, Steven Yazzie, and Nathan Young and acknowledges the important contributions of its previous collaborators, including Yazzie (2007–2010), Young (2007–2015), and Raven Chacon (2009–2018). Representing the diverse traditions and perspectives of their First Nations cultures, the collective’s multimedia practice utilizes the members’ shared Indigenous lens to examine modern-day institutions, systems, and beliefs. Their site-specific installations, interventions, videos, and sound works engage audiences in questions of environmental, economic, and political processes and often work closely with local communities to create discourse that connects Indigenous narratives with the broader public sphere.
In one of their early installations, for example, the artists removed a square slab of the floor from the Arizona State University Art Museum, revealing the tribal ground upon which the institution was built. In 2015, their seminal land-art installation Repellent Fence placed two miles of tethered balloons between Douglas, Arizona and Agua Prieta, Sonora, reaching across the U.S./Mexico border and creating a series of intentional dialogues between indigenous, United States, and Mexican publics and their government agencies.
Postcommodity are the recipients of grants from the Joan Mitchell Foundation (2010), Creative Capital (2012), Art Matters (2013), Native Arts and Cultures Foundation (2014), Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation (2017), Ford Foundation Art of Change Fellowship (2017-2018), Harker Fund of the San Francisco Foundation (2018-2019), Native Arts and Cultures Foundation Shift Award (2021), and Hewlett 50 Arts Commissions (2022). The collective has been exhibited nationally and internationally, including the 5th Biennial of the Moving Image, Mechelen, Belgium (2011); Nuit Blanche, Toronto, Canada; 18th Biennale of Sydney, Sydney, Australia (2012); Whitney Biennial, New York, NY (2017); Art in General, New York, NY (2017); documenta14, Athens, Greece and Kassel, Germany (2017); the 57th Carnegie International in Pittsburgh, PA (2018); Desert X, Coachella Valley, CA (2019); Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL (2019–2020); LAXART, Los Angeles, CA (2020); Minneapolis Institute of Art, Minneapolis, MN (2020); and Remai Modern Museum, Saskatoon, Canada (2021), among others.
About Their Residency
Their residency will take place June 22 through July 2, 2023, during which time they will focus on the state of the Great Salt Lake, continuing their interests from their 2021 multi-channel video work, Going to Water. (This work, which juxtaposes the scenic beauty of California’s Owens Valley with the horror of its ecological disaster, will be featured in Kimball Art Center’s upcoming exhibition, Between Life and Land: Crisis, opening July 21.) Their residency will also allow for continued work on their in-progress project, Cosmovisión, which explores the relationships between land, community, and worldview through a generative music performance.
Their residency at Kimball Art Center will provide support for continuing their impactful work.
