Open Source Gallery presents Heavy Lift, a site-specific project by Regin Igloria.
In Heavy Lift, Regin Igloria explores capitalism and object-driven ownership. This exhibit features the latest iteration of the artists’ work with movement using a cargo van and the contents of a custom-built dumpster, with which Igloria will travel from Chicago to Brooklyn.
Igloria’s recent sculpture and performance work describes movement through an interminable landscape of never-ending accumulation. The objects portrayed in his work serve as barriers affecting both psychological and physical movement, symbolic of the kind of navigation impacted by the current social climate of distrust, the nearing of the world’s end, and survival. Yet they exist as a kind of hope, bringing a sense of resiliency to troubled spaces.
This past year has been a test of determination. As a creator of objects as well as a social practitioner, almost every aspect of Igloria’s work was shifted like most others. His interactive work, primarily as a teaching artist using shared spaces and tools, was compromised. Family deaths, separation, and a return to his childhood home was a calling for a significant shift in his lifestyle, so his work responded directly. Through Heavy Lift, Igloria navigates objects collected by his family over the years, along with everyday objects involved in movement, acknowledging the plight of individuals hoping to find solace and peace in the current divided society.
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Regin Igloria is a multidisciplinary artist and educator based in Chicago. His drawings, artists’ books, sculptures, and performances portray the human condition as it relates to the natural environment and inhabited spaces. With several years of arts administration and teaching experience, he founded North Branch Projects, an organization that builds connections through the book arts. He works with various communities to create crossover between disparate populations and cultures, aiming to broaden the roles of both artists and non-artists. Igloria has taught at places such as Marwen, RISD, The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Snow City Arts, and Carthage College. He received a 3Arts Individual Artist Award as well as local, national, and international grants, support through artist residencies, and has exhibited internationally. He received his MFA from Rhode Island School of Design.
About Open Source Gallery
Open Source Gallery is an arts-based non-profit organization inspired by the open source movement. In the spirit of this free exchange of knowledge, we provide a forum where art intersects with the community and the world at large. Open Source energizes a diverse and creative community for people of all ages and backgrounds with an emphasis on expression, experimentation, sustainability, and social engagement.
