Anne Duk Hee Jordan: Snailing (Slippy slimy slug slut) / Hyeree Ro: Niro

Anne Duk Hee Jordan: Snailing (Slippy slimy slug slut)
Ground Level

Canal Projects is pleased to present Snailing (Slippy slimy slug slut), the first solo institutional show in New York by Korean-born, Berlin-based artist Anne Duk Hee Jordan. Duk Hee’s work is known for exploring the adverse effects of technology on nature and its impact on humanity’s connection to the planet, Duk Hee transforms Canal Projects into an immersive installation centering the world of the famous snail, Jeremy, and their quest to find a compatible mate. 

Jeremy was a garden snail with a rare sinistral condition where their shell coiled to the left, rather than the right, as a vast majority of snail shells do. As snails have a one-year lifespan and mate face-to-face, sliding past each other on the right side so their genitals can meet, Jeremy’s rare shell made it difficult to procreate. This tragic love story led the researchers studying Jeremy to embark upon an international search to find them a mate, succeeding shortly before he passed away in 2017.

Having both male and female reproductive organs, snails possess electromagnetic abilities to have sex and telepathic abilities to exchange their thoughts and feelings. Taking Jeremy’s story and the unique qualities of snail sexuality as their subject, Duk Hee, who identifies as non-binary, continues an artistic exploration of “sex ecologies,” pushing against western, patriarchal norms of sexual understanding to highlight the exuberant sexual possibilities and survival strategies of the more-than-human world. Jeremy’s journey from isolation to finding a mate is paralleled by moments of kinship that arise between human visitors and robotic snails that Duk Hee has arranged in various snail habitats throughout the exhibition.

Inspired by Jeremy’s quest for partnership, Duk Hee’s immersive environment serves as a reflection upon his extraordinary life and exercises the promise of interspecies knowledge building. Upon entering Canal Projects, visitors will encounter areas where human and snail habitats merge. Long columns of curtains arranged like the spiral of a snail’s shell create enclosures filled with salad-leaf pillows and carpets, live plants, and robotic snails. The installation is accompanied by three songs written by Duk Hee and composed by musician Sasha Perera that collage together scientific facts about Jeremy sourced from the internet, which visitors are encouraged to listen to as they lay in the rest areas. Duk Hee invites us to slow down and experience life at a snail’s pace, promoting a sense of shared existence and mutual care.

Hyeree Ro: Niro
Lower Level

Canal Projects is pleased to present Niro, a newly commissioned performance-installation by Brooklyn-based Korean artist Hyeree Ro (b. 1987) on view from September 27 through December 7, 2024. Cycling through a series of fragmented conversations that span various times, geographies, and relationships, Niro centers the artist’s complex relationship with her late father. Estranged from her father for thirteen years, Niro explores structures and experiences of mobility, loss, invisibility, and intimacy, with particular attention to the bonds and boundaries between parent and child.

The performance-installation series centers a skeletal, life-size sculpture of a Kia Niro, the car driven by the artist’s father and the site of some of their most meaningful shared experiences. Hours spent together on the road offered a context for connection with the car serving as a temporary extension of a home they never shared. The Niro’s open structure presents a setting that is simultaneously public and private, for looking ahead and reflecting on the past, suggesting an oscillating and non-linear encounter with the American road trip, and meditating on the relational entanglements that these journeys can hold.  

At Canal Projects, viewers will be invited to enter the sculpture to experience an audio recording of a fourteen-hour road trip to Niagara Falls taken by the artist earlier in the summer. A new video work centered on bodies of water features a soundscape composed of interviews Ro conducted with friends, where they shared their experiences of crossing the Pacific Ocean. Compiled together and played simultaneously, the installation’s audiovisual components flow as a stream of consciousness that carries the viewer amidst Ro’s gathered memories and reflections.

Performances are scheduled for October 5th, November 7th, and December 7th, 2024. Ro will activate the Niro sculpture through movement and a fragmented multilingual monologue. 

Special thanks to Rebecca Yeong Ae Mzengi Corey, Lulu Yao Gioiello, Sae Jun Kim, Christina Yuna Ko, Annie Ling, Anne Wu, Lucas Yasunaga for their trust and for sharing their stories; and to Armando Cortés for his invaluable support on this project. The exhibition is possible thanks to the support of the YS Kim Foundation, with additional support from the Jenni Crain Foundation.

Niro is curated by Maya Hayda. 

About Canal Projects
Canal Projects is a nonprofit contemporary arts organization dedicated to supporting forward-thinking local and international artists at pivotal moments in their careers. Through production, exhibition, research, and interpretation of this work, Canal Projects intends to foster artistic practices that challenge and reflect on the current moment. Canal Projects is supported by the YS Kim Foundation.

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Hannay Kay, hannah [​at​] culturalcounsel.com