Converge 45 Biennial: Social Forms: Art as Global Citizenship

By Tess Bilhartz, The Brooklyn Rail
September 1, 2023

For Social Forms: Art as Global Citizenshipthe third iteration of the Converge 45 Biennial, curator Christian Viveros-Fauné sought out art that engages with the pressing questions of its time and that might intervene, somehow, in a reimagining of Portland and other places. Many of the biennial artists seek to give a place form and direction, either as a witness to devastation and change or a conjurer of sometimes hopeful visions.

 

Some marks are ephemeral, like the lines left by skates on an ice rink or the brief and often imperceptible impact of a runner’s shoe on the ground. There are also the invisible imprints of fragrance or breath that mark a place at the molecular level. In Assembly at Parallax Art Space, Sara Siestreem’s (Hanis Coos) basket weaving materials hang, ready, at the entrance in cache eleven: straight to heaven. As I walk around the gallery, I might inhale scents and bits of intentionally placed olfactory and medicinal plants that reciprocally absorb particles of my own skin, hair, or breath. We all take something with us, and we all leave something behind.