2 Chairs and the 4th Corner Foundation are pleased to present:

Stream, Chapter 7: Object/Hyperobject/Human (We're in this thing together!)
Opening Reception, Saturday, September 28th 5-9PM
The exhibition will be on view through December 1st

4th Corner Foundation Gallery
578 Hitchcock Hill Rd.
Windham, VT 05359
Gallery hours: Wednesday–Friday 10-4, Weekends by appt.

This year we will explore the idea of the hyperobject coined by cultural theorist Timothy Morton:

"A hyperobject is a thing so vast in both temporal and spatial terms that we can only see slices of it at a time; hyperobjects come in and out of phase with human time; they end up 'contaminating' everything, if we find ourselves inside them." Timothy Morton1

This exhibition began by considering artists whose work evokes the uncanny scale of a hyperobject, especially as a way of reckoning with global warming and understanding ecological connections in nature. Our aim was to build upon our series of exhibitions titled Stream that have traditionally taken place in and around a local stream and have investigated the effects of human activity on the natural environment since 2014. We also took this occasion to bring back a few artists whose work has been significant in defining our curatorial project. If we are, as Morton says, caught in the hyperobject called global warming, what additional physical or social entities might be contributing to the formation of further hyperobjects ? Or as Bruno Latour asks, what can we do to "bring the solid objects of today into the fluid states where their connections with humans may make sense?"2 Moving from hyperobject to specific object, the exhibition considers the way objects connect us locally and globally to history, war, labor, community, care and empathy.

An exhibition directs the viewer towards a community of objects. From there each viewer can assemble a sort of meaning. Can a community of objects address contemporary environmental and social crises in a meaningful way? Art objects are traditionally saturated with excessive monetary and cultural value that transcends that of everyday objects such as a door, a newspaper or a mason jar. In considering both objects and hyperobjects, theorists like Morton strive to "displace the human from the center of meaning-making"3 or according to Katherine Behar to "treat humans as objects like any other, rather than privileged subjects."4 By advocating for the vitality of non-human objects we become attentive to needs beyond our narrow selves. We are prompted to take actions in the present for the future preservation of a healthy biosphere.

"Finally, when everything else has failed, the resource of fiction can bring–through the use of counterfactual history, thought experiments and 'scientification'–the solid objects of today into the fluid states where their connections with humans may make sense. Here again, sociologists have a lot to learn from artists." Bruno Latour5

Hannah Brontë
Harun Farocki
Juneau Projects
Liu Yujia
Long Pan
Debra Priestly
Patricia Thornley
Tomoe Tsutsumi
Erin Turner

Event Info

Nov 5, 2024, 5:30 to 8:30 PM

Nov 6, 2024, 5 to 7 PM

Nov 7, 2024, 9:30 to 10:45 AM