We know where to look

Tyna Ontko

August 3rd - September 2nd, 2023A
Opening reception Thursday August 3rd from 5-8pm

“Being an Artist isn’t glamorous but labor is beautiful”

From GenderFail’s Working Class Guide to Making a Living Off Self-Publishing

We know where to look responds to the institutional nature of its exhibition site. The installation plays with the architecture of institutional space, as gallery floors, walls, and walkways through which visitors pass are edited ever so slightly. The installation is thought of as a stage of sorts, a situation the viewer encounters and interacts with where attention is drawn toward the way their body is directed to move– choreography begins to emerge. Explorations of queerness, blue collar labor, and the body arise with questions forming around architecture, social stratification, and the construction of place. Class dynamics are depicted in the work through aesthetic hierarchies. In We know where to look, the viewer is encouraged to watch for what they’re most drawn toward or away from.

The installation is influenced in part by Ontkos upbringing in dance and community theater, where set design enables the creation of narrative spaces that are made to explore varied emotional states. In Queer Phenomenology, Sara Ahmed says, “Orientations are about the intimacy of bodies and their dwelling places.” How can architecture set the tone for different states of being? What do you feel in institutional spaces? Can similar practices to those used in theater production re:”the creation of place” be set in motion to better accommodate all bodies within our institutions?

Ontko is interested in how a creative practice can facilitate a sense of belonging. Artworks are imbued with spiritual affect and social merit, and the labor that goes into their making can be utilized to transcend class boundaries. In We know where to look, the hope is to create new ways of feeling in our bodies that bridge gaps between us and create new opportunities for understanding one another.