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TJ Shin: Malaria, Devouring Mother & Epistemic Circularity: A Listening Party

Epistemic Circulatory, February 4, 2023. Photo by Road Work Studio.

Epistemic Circulatory, February 4, 2023. Photo by Road Work Studio.

Epistemic Circulatory, February 4, 2023. Photo by Road Work Studio.

Epistemic Circulatory, February 4, 2023. Photo by Road Work Studio.

Epistemic Circulatory, February 4, 2023. Photo by Road Work Studio.

Malaria, Devouring Mother (2022) is a commissioned sound work by artist TJ Shin. In conjunction with its publication, Malaria, Devouring Mother was accompanied by readings by TJ Shin, Anna Cho-Son, and Boz Garden in February 2023 at KX Lab.

Malaria, Devouring Mother is an audio guide to murky ecologies near and far: from a biology lab in Buffalo to the artist’s studio in Los Angeles; from the pressure of hydraulic oil fracking to the puncture of a gene gun. The soundscape draws out the parasitic noise of extractive capitalism and the entwined politics of infection between body and geography, and it builds upon Shin’s long-term explorations of the historical life of malaria as well as the politics of contamination. Reflecting on the internal rhythm of the parasite, which causes and manifests the cyclical nature of malaria, Shin presents a sonar oscillation between the contamination of pulse, human and non-human bodies, and the rippling legacies of colonialism.

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About the Artists

TJ Shin
TJ Shin (b. 1993) is an interdisciplinary artist based in Los Angeles. Inspired by decentralized ecologies and queer sociality, they create living installations and imagine an ever-expanding self that exists beyond the boundaries of one’s skin. Shin has exhibited internationally at the Queens Museum, Lewis Center for the Arts, Roots...
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Boz Deseo Garden
Boz Deseo Garden (they/them/it/its, b. 1997) is an artist and theorist whose practice works within the semiotic, cinematic, and psychoanalytical impasses articulated by Afropessimist thought. Garden’s analytic studies the Slave as the unthought heuristic for signification, mattering, and the drive as such. Using photography, video, sculpture, and writing, Garden disputes...
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For Your Listening Experience

The artist also suggests sites throughout the city to visit for your listening experience:

Ballona Creek and Wetlands
Kenneth Hahn Park
Cave of Munits

About the Series

This project is part of The Garden, a research-based and artist-led guide to explore, experience, and experiment with the ecological imagination and speculative transfiguration of the “garden.”

Credits

Active Cultures programs have been made possible this year with generous support from the Active Cultures Board of Directors; the Gatherers Annual Fund; the California Arts Council, and the Los Angeles Visual Arts (LAVA) Coalition.

Special thanks to KX Lab.

Event Details

DATE: February 4, 2023 TIME: 4-7 PM

LOCATION: KX Lab

Registration

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Thank you to those who attended!

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