Скачать или смотреть "Empty Square": Online Exhibition Launch

Empty Square presents two virtual spaces that engage digitally rendered figures and objects. One is a phantasmagoric memorial site, the other, a dystopian surveilled space. Both spaces reveal how the effects of authoritarianism shape and obscure what is construed as the public.

A goddess is presented in a virtual space using 3-D imaging software. The work replicates the “Goddess of Democracy” statue at York University in Toronto, which is itself a replica of the original statue made by student protesters at Tiananmen Square. The statue is now relegated to an unremarkable location on York’s campus, away from traffic and possible controversy. 任鈞’s Goddess embodies the frail uncertainty of this history, as the Chinese state continues to outlaw the public memorialization of the massacre.

In Alistair MacKinnon’s Republic, a public square populated by citizens and law enforcement is seen from the perspective of CCTV, drones, body cams and cellphone cameras. Demonstrating the algorithmic racial bias of facial recognition technology, abstracted reflective bodies register under multiple camera angles while muted gray figures blend into the background. A project spurred by Black Lives Matters protests, these automated perspectives betray how racial hierarchies are embedded into a surveillance state.
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This exhibition takes place on the 32nd anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre, to remember the students and demonstrators who lost their lives on June 4th, 1989. Below, you can find reflections and memories of June 4th, shared in solidarity by members of the Embassy Cultural House community. We invite you to light a candle in your window, stage a one-person protest or develop your own ritual to commemorate the tragic events of this date.

View the exhibition here: https://www.embassyculturalhouse.ca/e...