Lucy Raven: Internal Properties of the Earth

NCR Manila, Philippines—Bellas Artes Projects is pleased to present Internal Properties of the Earth, the American artist Lucy Raven’s first solo exhibition in Asia curated by former Bellas Artes Projects Artistic Director Diana Campbell Betancourt.  The exhibition presents ten years of work that stem from Raven’s longstanding exploration of the American landscape through its hard wired and wireless connections to global networks of labor and material extraction and exchange across China, India, the Philippines, and the United States. 

Raven’s 2009 film China Town traces copper mining and production from an open pit mine in Nevada to a smelter in China, where the semi-processed ore is sent to be smelted and refined. Considering what it actually means to “be wired” and in turn, to be connected, in today’s global economic system, the video follows the detailed production process that transforms raw ore into copper wire—in this case, the literal digging of a hole to China—and the generation of waste and of power that grows in both countries as byproduct. This award winning film is found in the collections of Tate and the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) and will be screened on the hour through the course of the exhibition. Raven's 2015 animation The Deccan Trap is a sci-fi fable that goes back in space and time, from some of the newest 3D images being produced in India—at post-production studios in converting outsourced Hollywood films from 2D to 3D—to some of the oldest—bas-relief carvings in Ellora's rock cut temples in Madhya Pradesh.

The exhibition debuts Raven’s work in the Philippines with a new photographic series Fire and Mud (2018-2019), drawing inspiration from the 1991 volcanic eruption of Mt. Pinatubo in the Philippine state of Pampanga, and the subsequent evacuation of the nearby Clark Air Force Base, to examine the ongoing effects of American colonialism in the country. Mt. Pinatubo’s powerful eruption released an ashy pyroclastic glow called lahars, also known as wet concrete. Raven’s photographs, produced as part of an ongoing film project developed over the last two years as part of her residency at Bellas Artes Projects in Bataan, is a study into material state changes from liquid to solid and back again, as a means to explore the larger implications and effects of state change.

The opening reception for Internal Properties of the Earth will take place at BAP Outpost at The Alley at Karrivin 2316 Chino Roces Avenue, Makati on Tuesday, January 29 at 7pm.This event is free and open to the public.