Milad Mozari & Mitsu Salmon: Mt. Shamao
Exhibition Information:
August 19-October 28, 2018
Daily, 9-5pm
Opening Reception:
Sunday, August 19, 2018
3-5pm
Lincoln Park Conservatory*
2391 North Stockton Drive
Chicago, IL, 60614
Mt. Shamao is a site-responsive installation inhabiting Lincoln Park’s Fern Room by Milad Mozari and Mitsu Salmon. The work looks at man-made tropical paradises as connected to archives, importation, and utopias.
For the past year, Mozari and Salmon have been researching in Taiwan at the Forestry Research Institute and drawing historical and metaphorical lines back to Lincoln Park Conservatory's past and present. Ryozo Kanehira, Salmon’s great-grandfather was head of the Taipei Botanical Gardens in the early 1900s. Kanehira was a well-known botanist from Japan, who did extensive work in Taiwan during the Japanese occupation. In the same period, Chicago created five botanical conservatories (including the Lincoln Park) which were displays of wealth and imperialism much like the botanical ventures by the Japanese in Taiwan.
Playing with these parallel histories, Mozari and Salmon create a visual and sonic reflection that draw from the past archives and collected data of the two environments today.
For more information on this project visit Mozari and Salmon's project blog here.
About Milad Mozari
Milad Mozari’s work moves through concepts of music, belief systems, absence, and structures. His research-based practice often starts with sound or spatial experiments, which then attempt to resonate physically, historically, and experientially. While studying for his BS in International Studies at the University of Utah, he began to make and exhibit work about language and place. He continued his studies at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where he received an MFA in the Department of Sound. His work has shown internationally at the Hong Kong Arts Centre, International Symposium of Electronic Arts, Chicago International Film Festival, Litmus Community Space, Chicago Cultural Center, the Studebaker Theater, Roots & Culture and Experimental Sound Studio. Fellowships and residencies include Asian Cultural Council Grant to individuals, ACRE, Tsung-Yeh Artist Village, soundpocket and Taipei Artist Village. He currently lives in Chicago where he teaches at SAIC in the Department of Architecture, Interior Architecture, and Designed Objects.
About Mitsu Salmon
Mitsu Salmon creates performance and visual works that fuse multiple disciplines. Her current project investigates botany, familial histories, colonization, and archives. Salmon received her MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2014 and her undergrad degree from NYU. She has presented work at places such as the Chicago Cultural Center, Julius Caesar, Comfort Station and internationally at Hebbel Am Uffer in Berlin, Made Budhiana Gallery in Bali and Urbanguild in Kyoto, Japan. She has participated in artist residencies at Taipei Artist Village, Villa Pandan Harum in Bali, High Concept Lab, Links Hall, the Chicago Cultural Center and Oxbow. She was awarded best collaborative multi-disciplinary performance by Newcity in 2015, DCASE IAP, and a touring grant through Midwest Nexus in 2018.