SUBTERRANEAN

MediaLive, (April–May 2019)
curator

The life-cycle of technology begins and ends in the ground. Made of rare-earth elements, silicon, plastics, and other extracted materials, technologies also produce waste in their manufacture, use, and disposal. Subterranean considered technology’s relationship to the earth while taking up its role to bury—as well as dig up—matters of concern. I designed the exhibition and festival as a testing ground for curatorial approaches with reduced environmental harms, taking earthly materials in into account by, for example, not using vinyl wall text, painting the walls with custom mixes of museum leftovers, repurposing labels from past exhibitions, and commissioning unique performances that required no air travel (prior to COVID-19).

Subterranean was the 2019 edition of MediaLive, an annual international festival of media arts and culture at Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art (BMoCA), which I curated from 2016-2021. The festival, which includes an exhibition, performances, screenings, workshops, panel discussions, and other events, takes place at BMoCA as well as in multiple venues throughout the city of Boulder. It draws an average of over 2,000 visitors annually and, during my tenure, garnered hundreds of individual mentions in intenrational, national, and local publications, including: The Guardian, Vanity Fair, NY Magazine, Colorado Public Radio, ARTNET, USA Today, New York Daily News, NME Magazine, VICE Media, CBS News, The Today Show, GQ Magazine, and the Huffington Post.

Artists & Researchers: LaTurbo Avedon, Michelle Ellsworth, Brian House, Matmos, Kendle McDowell, Tabita Rezaire, Anna Ridler, Rick Silva, The Colorado Mycological Society, and Francis Marion Moseley Wilson

Commissioned works:
Matmos, Plastic Anniversary, Low Carbon (2019); LaTurbo Avedon, From Here We Dream Sublime (2019)