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Hellen Ascoli

I Woke Up Early to Comb the World








Proyectos Ultravioleta 
Guatemala City
July 22 - September 16





    
    






I have been standing all my life in the 
 direct path of a battery of signals 
 the most accurately transmitted most 
 untranslatable language in the universe 
 …I am an instrument in the shape 
 of a woman trying to translate pulsations 
 into images for the relief of the body 
 and the reconstruction of the mind. 





         -Adrienne Rich, “Planetarium”





 In her first solo exhibition at Proyectos Ultravioleta, Hellen Ascoli (b. 1984, Guatemala) presents a new body of work that brings together site-specific installation, textile, sound, and photograph. Here, Ascoli continues her investigations into the parameters and knowledges of the body. By invoking membranes and creating experiences of enclosure or of reception and listening, the sensory exploration that the works invite also construct tensions. “Weaving is about tension,” the artist notes, and “on the backstrap loom, I am connected to the ‘world’ to provide that tension.” Taking weaving as both material and metaphor for considerations of the body’s parameters, its place, and its connectedness, the exhibition also includes new work based on the artist’s research in the Sierra de los Cuchumatanes. At one of the highest points in Guatemala, Ascoli’s wearing of the weave becomes a way to create new pulsations, new lines, between geographic formations, earth elements, and the artist.






 Ascoli is an artist, weaver, and educator who investigates material culture to understand relationships and identity. Her studio practice stems from an affective and analytical engagement to materials, body, and space, which she uses to map and understand complex relationships, systems of power, and economics. After completing her MFA in Sculpture at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2012, Ascoli has had exhibitions, both individual and collective, at Concepción 41, Sótano 1, Galería Sol del Río, and 9.99 Galería in Guatemala; and at Lawndale Art Center in Houston, TX. Her work has been included in the Bienal Paiz and her upcoming exhibitions include Videobrasil, São Paulo, and Acts of Aggression at Southern Methodist University, Dallas, TX. She currently teaches at Francisco Marroquín University and is the Director of Education at the Museo Ixchel of Indigenous Dress. She designed the mediation program for the 19th and 20th Paiz Biennials.





 The exhibition is accompanied by an essay by Laura A. L. Wellen, PhD.

            

            

                                    Other exhibitions by Hellen Ascoli at Proyectos Ultravioleta: