Exhibition Statement

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Aquatic Channels: Waterways, Water Resources, Fluvial Imagination turns rivers into lines of connection. Moving and flowing in many directions, these lines form a complex network of images, ideas, sounds, and objects, evoking a symbolic hydrography in the exhibition space. Bodies of water become the conduits of the meanings.

Rivers shape human and non-human existence in their multiple roles as fundamental resources for sustenance of life. Ubiratan Gamalodtaba Suruí’s photographs evoke water in every practice of daily life: fishing, cooking, building, body painting, and clay molding. His photo archive makes the indigenous Paiter Suruí everyday emerge in the delicate Amazonian ecosystem of ground rivers and flying rivers, the forest, and multispecies cooperation, often disrupted by land invasion, gold prospecting, and criminal fires.  

Rivers are spatial markers in continual reconfiguration. They are simultaneously limits and passages. They change according to seasons. They can be humanly altered. They can cause unforeseen displacements. Gabriel Bicho seeks the marks of the Madeira River intrusion in neighborhoods of Porto Velho, in the state of Rondônia, Brazil. Trespassing the limits of its course, the river re-acts to predatory interventions in the fluvial cycle, the highest price paid by riverine communities.

Rivers are political actors. Witnesses of colonial histories. Native to the land. Enmeshed in the social webs sustaining life. A vital force empowering decolonial world-making. Carolina Caycedo and David de Rozas overwrite Texas’ colonial cartography with indigenous cosmology.  The storytelling assumes the contours of the voice of Juan Mancias, Chairman of the Carrizo-Comecrudo Tribe of Texas, who narrates Carrizo-Comecrudo histories interconnected with the Grande River, the Devils, and the land.

Rivers preserve particles of the past. They carve new stories on the ground. Past and present are interconnected in sediments and water. Laray Polk’s samples of water and sediments from the Trinity River and the Bolivar Peninsula imprint senses of time. Deposited silt and rocks entangle coast and inland, geological and human time. The artist finds signs of industrial ethos in residues dragged to the coast, archaeological artifacts of our time. 

We—all of us on Terra—live in disturbing times, mixed-up times, troubling and turbid times. Our task is to make trouble, to stir up potent response to devastating events, as well as to settle troubled waters and rebuild quiet places. (Donna Haraway)

Aquatic Channels: Waterways, Water Resources, Fluvial Imagination is curated by PhD candidate in Art History Gabriela Paiva de Toledo. This exhibition was made possible by the support of Samuel S. Holland, Algur H. Meadows Dean and Professor of Music; Holly Jeffcoat, Dean of SMU Libraries; Jolene de Verges, Director of Hamon Arts Library; Beverly Mitchell, Assistant Director of Hamon Arts Library and Director of Mildred Hawn Exhibition Gallery; Brian Molanphy, Meadows Associate Professor of Art;  Adam Herring, The Emily Rich Summers Endowed Professor in Art History; John Dickinson, Meadows Art Lecturer and Director of the Pollock Gallery;  LaGail Davis, Manager of General Operations, Hamon; Tippi Polo, Division of Art Coordinator; Ashley Whitt, Meadows Director of Visual Resources, Art History; and Art History PhD student Sophia Salinas. 

This exhibition occurs simultaneously at the Hawn Gallery, Hamon Arts library, and the Pollock Gallery.

Location

Hawn Gallery:

Jake and Nancy Hamon Arts Library Lobby, Owen Arts Center, 6101 Bishop Blvd, Dallas, TX 75205

Pollock Gallery:

6116 N US 75-Central Expy 1000, Dallas, TX 75206

Hours

The Hawn Gallery:

See Hamon Arts Library Calendar

The Pollock Gallery:

Visits are available by appointment via e-mail: gpaivadetoledo@smu.edu

General Parking Information

Hawn Gallery:

Use the Moody Parking Center at the southeast corner of SMU Boulevard and Airline Road. The garage is located at 3063 SMU Blvd., less than half a mile from U.S. Highway 75 (North Central Expressway). All-day parking is $10, payable by credit card.

Visitors may also use the Binkley Parking Center at the corner of Binkley Avenue and Airline Road. The visitor entrance is on Binkley Avenue, and visitors may park anywhere on Level 2 or above. Payment is made before exiting the garage; the all-day parking is $10, payable by credit card.

Metered parking is available as indicated on the campus map. Meters allow for a maximum of three hours at 1.50 an hour coin or 1.85 an hour using ParkMobile.

Pollock Gallery:

Parking is available on site.

Route 440 SMU Red Express Route

Bus Route 440 (SMU Red Express) takes you to campus, popular student apartment areas and nearby stores, services and restaurants. And you can connect to the DART Rail Red, Blue or Orange Line and other buses at SMU/Mockingbird Station.

Monday through Saturday, 7 am - 10 pm, when classes are in session.

View Route 440 schedules: https://www.dart.org/riding/mustangexpress.asp

When moving from one gallery to another, visitors may take the SMU free shuttle or drive (7 min).

Exhibition Statement