Francesco Allegretto
Artist Jinny Yu reflects on her exhibit Don’t They Ever Stop Migrating? in Venice, Italy.The Ottawa Art Gallery has collaborated to support an overseas art installation by a Canadian artist for the first time. The exhibit, entitled Don’t They Ever Stop Migrating?, uses visuals and sound to showcase conflicting reactions to the current migration crisis.
Artist Jinny Yu created the piece after being invited to be a part of the Canadian pavilion at the Venice Biennale – an art exhibition celebrated once every two years in Venice, Italy.
The non-profit cultural association, Nuova Icona, is presenting her exhibit.
Yu, originally from South Korea, credits the ongoing migration crisis as one inspiration for her piece.
“I was thinking about the emotional reactions that people have towards this foreign mass coming and occupying a part of your own territory,” she says.
Yu spent four months creating the exhibit in her Centretown-based art studio.
The installation is housed in the Oratorio di San Ludovico, a former church from the 16th century. White fabric covers the ceiling and walls, painted with thousands of swarming black brush strokes.
A sound piece is also played in the exhibit, a mix of lines from Alfred Hitchcock’s movie, The Birds.
The chaotic background noise collides with a woman yelling panicked statements, such as “Who are you?”, “What are you?” and “Where did you come from?”
“If you actually substitute the idea of the birds in that movie with the idea of migrants, the reaction of the different characters is chillingly similar to our society’s reaction to migration,” says Yu.
Her goal was to address a contrast between verbal and physical reactions some have to immigration.
“Society is ready to accept the idea of migration and we know all the benefits,” she says. “But bodily, we act with the emotion of fear when we see a mass of foreign bodies we don’t know.”
Ola Wlusek of the OAG was one of three curators on the installation. She says Yu’s art is both ambitious and thought provoking.
“I think ultimately she wants us to have this experience of fear and claustrophobia, but in a way to examine our own reaction to her work,” Wlusek says.
“But also, what’s going on in the world and how do we feel about it.”
“It’s very important, I think, for any organization to present artists that deal with current issues that impact us all at a social community level. It’s a very smart and timely piece.”
Wlusek says she is hopeful that the OAG will be able to support more local artists on national and international levels in the future.
Dr. Rukhsana Ahmed, associate professor of Arts Communication at the University of Ottawa, says that with so many sources of news and information available to us, having an artistic adaptation of current issues would make them more relatable.
“You have to have the human side, right? The importance of telling a story so that it actually reaches people, gets people,” she says.
There is no current plan to bring the installation to Ottawa, though Yu says she would enjoy hearing the different discussions the piece could spark in a multicultural country like Canada.
“Italy, very much like other countries that are more homogeneous than we are, they have stronger reactions against a mass of foreignness coming into their territory,” Yu says.
“We are a country of immigrants, and so I think we have a more complex reaction to the idea of migration – a nuanced way of thinking about migration.”
The exhibit runs until Nov. 22.