ANA MENDIETA

- Born in Cuba in 1948 and came to the United States as a refugee in 1961 at age 12- Emerged as an artist in the early 1970’s, with a new genres practice that incorporated land art, performance art, photography, film and video - all through a feminist lens-Mendieta’s work consisted largely of what she referred to as “earth-body sculptures”

“The trauma of separation from her family, culture, and homeland became the bedrock of the artist’s practice, which was rooted in physical and spiritual connections between the body and the natural world.” - Art Institute Chicago

“I have thrown myself into the very elements that produced me. It is through my sculptures that I assert my emotional ties to the earth and conceptualize culture.”

SOFIA HULTEN

- Born in Stockholm in 1972- Working with sculpture as having performative potential- In this work entitled, Auflösung (Dissolution, 2008) – Hulten took objects that were found in vacant lots around Berlin and put them through a shredder, then returned them to the exact location they were found.

”Instead of producing objects, Sofia is interested in changing the state of existence of her ready-made material. Her work is therefore four dimensional where time becomes an intelligible element.” - initiArt Magazine

“It’s about the mixture of what would happen anyway. When you have a mattress that you want to throw away, you bring it to the garbage collecting point and they would shred it. But usually you just leave it somewhere on the sidewalk, or in a park. Then eventually it also breaks down. What I am interested in is changing a time structure, making something speed up or slow down, for example. I know it’s a bit like playing God! It’s also a kind of absurdity.”