centre d'artistes.artist run centre
Oct 20 - Dec 3, 2006
Opening: Friday October 20 at 7pm
Discussion with the artist: Saturday October 21 at 3pm
Pangea Ultima is a term for the mega continent that will be formed as the present continents slowly converge for the next 250 million years.
Helen Cho is interested in investigating the popularization of the theory of evolution, as well as ideas of hierarchy, competition, nationalism, and gender. The artist sees these notions as essentially, fundamentally, and anthropologically derived from the development of evolutionary stories. Her exhibition Pangea Ultima is composed of different works, such as labour intensive ink drawings suggesting reconstructions of origin stories by combining sources that vary from science fiction to National Geography, from paleoanthropology to studies of apes. Other elements of the installation include manipulated soccer balls that are inspired by questions about the dynamics between the role of gender and competitive activities associated with sexuality and aggression. The artist also presents a work with colour belts used in martial arts pointing to the misconception that these colours are based on a general and clear system of order and hierarchy. In Helen Cho's work, the logic of winning and losing, essential to the nature of competition is disrupted and undermined. The combination of symbols, objects and material suggests possibilities where hierarchy and the rules of competition can take on new meanings and purposes.