Two exhibitions:
In the main gallery: Hasan Elahi, Tracking Transience: The Orwell Project
In the project space: Nilay Lawson, Out There Is In Here
ON VIEW:
April 27 - June 9, 2007OPENING RECEPTION:
Friday, April 27, 2007, 8pm - 10pmClick here to download press release in PDF format
Civilian Art Projects presents two concurrent solo exhibitions: Tracking Transience: The Orwell Project by Hasan Elahi and Nilay Lawson's Out There Is In Here. The exhibitions open Friday, April 27, 2007 and will be on view until Saturday, June 9, 2007. An opening reception for the artists will be held Friday, April 27, 2007 from 8:00 to 10:00 p.m. (Please note the late reception to accommodate artDC patrons.) Public hours for this exhibition are Wednesday through Saturday from 12:00 to 6:00 p.m. and by appointment.
In his first Washington, DC exhibition, Hasan Elahi presents work from Tracking Transience: The Orwell Project -- a multi-year collection of photographs and videos with a web-based companion that tracks his daily movements in real-time. The project began shortly after September 11 when Elahi was erroneously reported as a terrorist suspect. After a series of interrogations and polygraph sessions, he was finally cleared of any suspicions. Realizing that he could track himself better than any government surveillance mechanism, Elahi began Tracking Transience to protect himself from disappearing and future potential accusations.
Elahi's work has been recently exhibited at PS122 and Exit Art in New York; Ars Electronica in Linz, Austria; the Kulturbahnhof in Kassel, Germany; the BBC Big Screen in Manchester, UK; and The Hermitage in St. Petersburg, Russia. He has spoken on his work at the Tate Modern in London, New York University, and at the American Association of Artificial Intelligence hosted by Stanford University. His work will be featured in Migration Addicts, Collateral Events: In Search of Spiritual Space at the Biennale di Venezia, opening June 7, 2007.
In her first solo exhibition, Nilay Lawson exhibits new paintings in Civilian's project space. About her work the artist says: "I record scenes, people and word play, then translate them into pictorials." Lawson graduated from the Corcoran College of Art and Design in 2002. Past exhibitions include: The Biocycle Show FSC, Baltimore, Maryland; Exchange, The Creative Alliance, Baltimore, Maryland; Long Distance Relationship, Sala Diaz, San Antonio, Texas; The Relationship Show, Transformer, Washington, DC; and End Mates, Your Last Neighbor, Washington, DC.