Join us for the Opening Reception!
Curated by: Jenny Gerow, Assistant Curator
On view through October 23, 2016
Jen Bervin is an interdisciplinary artist and poet whose conceptually driven works weave together art, writing, science and life in a complex yet elegantly simple way. Both works on view at BRIC stem from her international silk research for a poem she wrote in the form of a silk biosensor with Tufts University’s Silk Lab.
By suggestion, Bervin’s Tiraz installation transforms the BRIC Hallway into an early Islamic form of cloth. The tiraz, a textile given as an honorary gift, offered blessings to the recipient in a single band of Arabic script embroidered in silk thread on linen. The running text in the hallway refers to the epigraphist’s description of the fragmentary blessing on a tiraz made in Egypt in the year 862.
In conjunction with the exhibition, Bervin is organizing a tiraz writing workshop at BRIC, in which participants will write their own blessings honoring a loved one in Arabic. The artist will then hand-embroider these on a contemporary version of a tiraz, which will be exhibited at BRIC House during the BRIC Biennial later this fall. For more information, email contemporaryart@BRICartsmedia.org.
Silk Line, a durational piece by Bervin, will be located in the window leading into BRIC House (between the two sets of entry doors). During the performance, which will take place during the opening reception on September 7, Bervin will draw a continuous line with a white china marker on the window, using the same filament pattern the silkworm makes in creating its cocoon.
Bervin’s Creative Capital project Silk Poems, is currently on view in the exhibition Explode Every Day at MASS MoCA. Her upcoming project in China, Su Hui's Reversible Poem, has been selected for a Montalvo Art Center LAP Fellowship and a 2016 Asian Cultural Council Fellowship. Bervin is the recipient a Robert Rauschenberg Residency, and is currently an artist-in-residence at the SETI Institute. Her work is held in more than thirty international collections, including The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles; and the Walker Art Center, Minneaopolis.
Special thanks to The Textile Museum, Carol Bier, and The Antonio Ratti Textile Center of The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
This commission provides space for visual artists to create installations frequently in dialogue with exhibitions on view in the Gallery.
Venue Information:
Beginning Nov. 1, 2022, attendees of any BRIC House programming will no longer have to show proof of vaccination or a negative test to enter the building. Masks are encouraged but not required in all BRIC operated spaces. If you have questions regarding this protocol, please email Safety@bricartsmedia.org