asakiyume | Firelei Báez exhibit

Today was the day we chose to go to the Firelei Báez exhibit! Nothing like a sunny, mild, first-of-August day to venture into Boston for the first time in, oh, a very long time.

Everything was enchanting and exciting, but I will try to space things out over posts so as not to be gushing in too many different directions at once. Today I will gush mainly about the exhibit. ... Actually, the gushing will mainly take the form of photos because, having read Siddhartha Mitter's New York Times article, I didn't then actually take the time to look at the accompanying information that went with the installation. I just whirled around going, "This is great, this is so great! Listen to that recording--they're talking in so many languages! Feel these barnacles! Look at these details!" and so on.

So it's meant to suggest Haiti's Sans-Souci palace, beneath the waves. Here is a photo of the actual Sans-Souci ruins (you can click through to see it larger):

And here is your first view into the installation. The waves above, the arches aslant, like you are swimming any which way, like they shifted in an earthquake before drowning.

Closer...

Closer still....

The tattered waves casting a mackerel sky upon the walls....

Barnacles and cultural imprints....

At the front of the exhibit, Firelei Báez has a large mural of a mythical form superimposed over a map of the Atlantic and Caribbean, with textual comments on various waterways and features. I picked out a few:

I'm going to save murals for another post, but I just have to include this one, which is on the Watershed building itself. Cut off by my inferior photo taking is a magnificent fish sculpture. Instead, willy-nilly, you get that bright white pickup truck.