Sun Seekers
October 14–30, 2022
Sun Seekers, created by sisters Amy Khoshbin and Jennifer Khoshbin, is a site-specific, interactive exhibition inspired by a sci-fi narrative that imagines and embodies an alternate world maintaining a direct correlation to our experience of indoor onscreen life (the Wreck-tangle world)—a world where we detach from our cell phones, heal our bodies, and reconnect with the sun and natural world.
Installation pieces drawing from Iranian Sun Worship practices include symbolic imagery and references to the cyclical nature of time and rebirth through immersion in the sun and the environment.
Visitors are invited to engage physically with the art, where they can experience entering a 9’ sun womb, wearing weighted capes, rocking in a chair that generates music with each movement, and reclining on a scented bed in the shape of a vagina, among other tactile experiences.
Drawing from the Khoshbin’s experiences of being tethered to digital devices, particularly during the pandemic, the Sun Seekers’ world interweaves performance, mythology, and immersive environments to provides opportunities for healing from the modern condition.
The Sun Seekers exhibition can be experienced at The Arts Center at Governors Island, now through October 30.
Friday–Sunday, 12–6pm or by appointment
RSVP here. Free and open to all.
Sun Seekers Induction Ceremonies—live performances at 3pm on October 15 at The Oculus at The World Trade Center and October 16 at The Arts Center at Governors Island—accompany the exhibition, providing audiences with an opportunity to learn the origin story of how the Seekers began, participate in object-making, and activate their senses with durational technology-free somatic experiences both inside the installation and outside in the sun.
About Amy Khoshbin and Jennifer Khoshbin
Amy Khoshbin is an Iranian-American Brooklyn-based artist, activist, and educator. She pushes the formal and conceptual boundaries of artmaking to foster radical social change through performance, social practice, video, collage, rap music, writing and installation. She has shown at venues such as The Whitney Museum of American Art and The Guggenheim Museum and festivals such as South by Southwest and River to River. She has collaborated with Laurie Anderson, Karen Finley and poet Anne Carson, among others.
Jennifer Khoshbin is a San Antonio artist, curator, and community activist. Her work often aims to present a detail of the story of human diversity and community. Whether creating intricate personal drawings or large-scale public art pieces, there exists a simple phrase, idea or story worth telling. Jennifer has exhibited works in galleries and museums throughout the United States: Times Square Arts, Artpace, Southwest School of Art and Craft, TX; Rose and Radish Gallery, SF; Bellevue Arts Museum, WA; 360SEE, Chicago; and Tinlark Gallery in LA, among others. Her work has been published and written about widely and has appeared in Newsweek, Readymade, House Beautiful, Glamour and in numerous art and craft books.
About The Arts Center at Governors Island
Conceived by Lower Manhattan Cultural Council (LMCC) as a creative gathering space for artists and the public, The Arts Center at Governors Island is located within the Governors Island Historic District, just minutes away from Manhattan by ferry. It features 40,000 square feet of space dedicated to public performances, exhibitions and artist residencies, as well as multiple visual and performing arts studios and a cafe. Artists are in residence year-round, with public programming taking place from May through the end of October. Exhibitions currently on view include Amy Khoshbin and Jennifer Khoshbin: Sun Seekers, Elissa Blount-Moorehead & Bradford Young: Back and Song, and Simon Benjamin: Pillars.
