Artist Sharlene Cline’s “Connected” is an immersive exploration of shared humanity. The museum’s press release defines the exhibit as delving into themes of genetic memory, ancestral connection, epigenetics and general interconnectedness. This exploration will be on display through September with live presentations at the beginning of each month through September.
Cline describes the main installation of the event as a maternal family portrait of genetics from seven women in Homer and one from Port Graham. The women featured include Melissa Carlin, Megan Corazza, Cheryl Fusco, Winter Marshall-Allen, Ludmila Martushev, Juxia Scarpitta, Daniella Malchoff and Cline herself.
Cline’s artist statement at the museum states that this asks, “do we carry more than genes? Do we carry memory, resilience and hope, too?” Each woman in the show is represented by a gauzy DNA double-helix with an image of the woman at the top of the ladder and her maternal grandmother and great-grandmother depicted below her, if images were available. Heritage and history of each woman influenced whether or not this was available. As Cline explained, she was adopted as a child so her DNA strand does not include other images. Another woman whose family migrated from Africa and another from China have no pictures due to lack of cameras available.
She also explained some of the obscure or tarnished features of memory and how that’s portrayed in the sculptures;“...on the sculpture we have on the rungs of the DNA double helix, the photos of the Mother, the woman, the mother, the grandmother, the great grandmother. But we also have sheer fabric around it so that when you look at it, you can't see everything at one time, because stories you can't, they unfold. The whole subject we are trying to see is what stories do we carry from our ancestors? What stories do we carry, what traits do we carry from our ancestors? And it's in layers. And so you don't see everything at once. You don't and stories unravel. And so that was the image, is to try to have it, have that feeling where you're at one point, if you're standing in front of it, you only see a couple of people. If you stand a different way, you see some others and some are covered. And to give that feeling, that history is in layers, stories are in layers,” Cline said.
Cline explained what the heritage of “roots” is intended to express and how she came up with the idea for the presentation; “..I came up with this idea when I was pregnant with Ayana and Austin, because adopted, I was like, oh my god, I was finally gonna have, like, some kind of connection biologically to people and and then I was started thinking about it, and that's how this came about,” she said.
She talked about the women chosen for portraits in the exhibit “…it's such a story of America. There are stories of people like how Winter's grandfather swam across the Rio River to get here, and like all these people like wanting to be here and working hard and being more creative. That's what America is. So it's such a story of successful immigration. And also, when I first talked to the Pratt, they really wanted to kind of have a representation of Homer. So we have a fisher woman and her family, you know, did some homesteading. And then Filipinos are a big Asian group in Alaska, and then Native American and so that was part of it, too,” Cline said.
For the June opening reception, Breezy Berryman with the Motivity Dance Company will perform with dancers Brigit Doran, Aurora Springer and Aria Palma using the DNA strands as stage space and dance props. On July 11, Jenny Baker will provide a live performance featuring songs that she wrote. In August, Kate Rich will share a one act play and in September, Daniella Marchoff with Paluwik Dance from Port Graham will perform.
Finally, the space will feature an “interactive corner” that will provide attendees an opportunity to share their own family heritage and what they interpret to have gained from relatives in their own personalities. The June First Friday opening exhibit will be in the Pratt Museum main gallery from 4:30-6:30 with the dance event beginning at 5:30.
