CHANNEL - A cartography of Thirst II, 2019/2020, adobe earth and projection, dimensions variable.
CHANNEL - A cartography of Thirst II, adobe earth and projection (detail).
Left: Land Form I- Distribution (Diptych), 2018, handmade adobe and graphite on paper, 52 X 40 inches.
Middle: Land Form III- Mother Ditch (Diptych), 2019, handmade adobe and graphite on paper, 52 X 40 inches.
Right: Land Form II- Diversion (Diptych), 2018, handmade adobe and graphite on paper, 52 X 40 inches.
False Arch- The Span of An Opening (Hexaptych), adobe mud and graphite on paper, 120 X 52 inches.
True Arch- The Span of An Enclosure (Diptych), adobe mud and graphite on paper, 52 X 40 inches.
A wall is a shadow on the land, archival research, 2020-21, (detail).
A wall is a shadow on the land, archival research, 2020-21, (detail).
A wall is a shadow on the land, archival research, 2020-21, (detail).
TIMELINES FOR THE FUTURE
Curated by Lucy Cotter
Portland, OR
This exhibition presents a series of new and recent works that encompass these many facets of Howard Sandoval’s oeuvre. Channel (2016-19), a passage of sculpture, video installation, and mixed media drawings, addresses the complex relationship between Hispanic and Native agrarian histories and current riparian rights and land uses. Live Stream (2018) is a performance-based video that re-inscribes disappeared migratory paths and waterways in and around the site of the Acequia Madre in Taos, New Mexico; drawing on her research on ancient water democracies (Acequias). Filmed using a body-cam, the video work sets out to deflect the surveillance-oriented nature of this technology to create an embodied portrait which foregrounds invisible and contested narratives of human inhabitation.
Howard Sandoval’s latest project A wall is a shadow on the land (2020- ) un-tells the story of Spanish “missionization” by taking the departure point of her Chalon Ohlone great-grandparents. Unfolding a history of enslaved laborers who built the missionary adobe structures along the Pacific Coast, her research teases out the material forms of this architecture and engages with modularized constructions built on top of Indigenous sacred sites and architectures from South America to Alta California. Through archival images and adobe drawings, Howard Sandoval re-maps these sites to work towards alternate political and material imaginaries.
Text by Lucy Cotter
Photography by Mario Gallucci