Artists Seek The Knowledge Within

The figure in Yige Tong’s Confluence connotes both safety and vulnerability. She may be at rest, sleeping comfortably. She may also be protecting herself, or recovering from hurt. The sense that both readings are in play is amplified by a closer look at the piece, where the viewer discovers that the background is made up of fragmented and interwoven images of the faces of small children and adults. Family members? Friends? Strangers? The pieces of the past surround her. Some may give comfort. Others remembrance of pain. A final part of the image lies in seeing what’s in the woman’s hand: a remote control for a camera. She has taken her own picture, put it up for others to see. The image of her body is meant to pass something along, deliver a message, maybe find connection.

Tong’s piece is part of ​“Embodied Knowledge,” a large and vibrant show featuring the work of nearly 40 artists, running now through July 30 at the Ely Center of Contemporary Art on Trumbull Street. ​“This far-reaching exhibition explores the concept of embodied knowing, or that knowledge both resides in and can be conducted through the body,” an accompanying note states. ​“With a focus on art’s role in documenting complex processes of embodied knowing, the show celebrates the power of individual insights to deliver us to mass liberation.” 

The artists in the show consider ​“how ritual, performance and labor cultivate a deeper sense of self in relation to society; how radical intimacy subverts prescribed social roles and formations, welcoming more instinctual ways of knowing; and how direct observation and introspection catalyze the transfer of wisdom across time, space, and constructed borders.” 

At its most moving, the pieces in ​“Embodied Knowledge” convey how we carry our pasts within ourselves, and the more we understand how that works, the better we can heal some of the hurt, and create a kinder future for ourselves and those around us.

Several of the pieces on the show center on dislocation and violence — in the context of the show, perhaps the violence latent in carrying the past, whether it’s violence people suffered in their own lives or the generational trauma passed down to them from their families. In Remy Sosa’s painting, the outward scene may be tranquil, but inside the subject’s head, in the frame within the frame, the tension is raging. The painting is in some ways a call to empathy, a gentle reminder of the difficulties people struggle with and keep hidden.

Several other works embrace the power that tapping into that embodied knowledge can bring. Mesoma Onyeagba’s pieces blend the realistic and the mythical, suggesting the ways in which accessing that knowledge can be understood as a kind of magic. Those who use it can transform themselves and the environment around them.

The title of Catherine Nelson’s sculpture can be understood as both noun and verb, which imbues the piece with action and says something about perseverance. The shape has a sense of having been nicked and battered, but its essence remains. It knows how to get by.

Then there are pieces like Constance Brady’s Time Will Break the World, which takes on a few angles at once. It’s possible to see at first what feels like a pleasant scene, a woman taking care of another woman, both of them smiling as if someone not in the frame has just told them a joke. But once seen, the flames in the lower right corner dominate everything. Are they a real part of the picture? Is the older woman in the wheelchair on fire? Or are the flames superimposed, a metaphor, a symbol? One reading to bring the elements together suggests that the painting is about the necessity of observation, to see the threats, the struggles, below the surface of even the most mundane scenes. If you don’t see them, you are at their mercy. If you do, you can respond, and figure out what to do.

“Embodied Knowledge” runs at the Ely Center of Contemporary Art, 51 Trumbull St., through July 30. Visit the gallery’s website for hours and more information.