Vivian Vivas

Bio: Vivian Vivas fuses moving image, sound, photography, unchoreographed dance, performance, and installation. Her work challenges boundaries in contemporary issues, prompting inquiries into migration, identity, and climate collapse. Vivian was recognized as a finalist for the 2022 Frankenthaler Climate Award. Recent exhibitions include In Response: Jonas Mekas at the Jewish Museum in NY, High Beams No.6 Convoy in Denver, The New Wight Biennial 2022 in LA, and performance in the John Giorno Octopus Series at the Performance Space in NY. Vivian studied Art Photography at the Andy Goldstein School of Creative Photography in Buenos Aires, Argentina, before receiving her BFA with a double major in Film and Photography from the San Francisco Art Institute.

www.vivianvivasart.com
Instagram: @vivianvivass

Thesis Exhibition

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Artist Statement: may I die before I’m gone

Will we have existed only as an idea, a forgotten dream, the archeology of an emotional landscape whose dying wish was to mourn itself?

Even disappearance requires a point of view, a chronology, and a set of values; raising questions about the psychological borders between domestication and wilderness, our own simplified way of affirming or denying our relationship to Nature.

Although there has always been an exchange between bodies and ecosystems, we have never possessed the ability to perceive a non-human perspective. And while we yearn to talk about this otherness that is beyond our grasp, perhaps we can draw on our nostalgia for the unknown to glimpse its essence; an evasive key to comprehending our ephemeral place within the universe.

Amidst our communal grieving for Nature is a prevalent sense of the uncanny: a provoked pain witnessed and felt by both the individual and community that elicits fear on a personal and familiar level, but at its peak implies extinction.

Maybe our voyage is just a homecoming, a simple affirmation of our return to Nature, but still the question remains: Who will be here to say we’re gone?

may I die before I’m gone (17 min, Two-channel 4k video, color, multi-channel sound, 2023)