EXHIBITION
MEGAN BENT: LATENCY
January 13 - February 7, 2020
Commons Gallery, University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa
Megan Bent's exhibition makes the invisible visible through chlorophyll printing, a technique which uses UV light to print photographic images directly onto leaves. These images—medical imagery from her own recurring visits to doctors as well as imagery invited from people within the disability culture community—highlight what is invisible about their experiences. The resulting images are impermanent and will decay over time, asking the viewer to confront the bodily impermanence we all share.
The artist writes:
As I move through space I am perceived as healthy but inside of my body, my immune system mistakes my tendons, ligaments, and joints as invaders, and actively works to break them down. This experience, while concealed, is one that has greatly shaped who I am as a person and is an experience from which I draw a lot of knowledge and power. In the same way that after exposure, the photographic paper needs to be submerged in developer for the image to appear like alchemic magic, I am exploring the ways I can make my invisible identity known. Printing medical imagery reclaims our medicalized bodies and journeys as patients, creating a new sense of agency.
Artist Bio
Megan Bent is a New England-based artist, teaching artist, and activist. She received her MFA and Graduate Certificate in Disability Studies from the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa in 2012. She received her BFA from the School of Visual Arts, NY, in 2004.
Her artwork has been exhibited widely across the United States in exhibitions at the Rayko Photo Center in San Francisco; The Vera Project, in Seattle, WA; the East Hawaii Cultural Center/HMOCA in Hilo, HI; Flux Factory in Long Island City, NY; El Museo Cultural de Santa Fe, NM; and the Piedmont Council for the Arts, in Charlottesville, VA.
Megan has been an artist in residence at the Honolulu Museum of Art and has been a featured community exhibitor in the Look3 Festival of the Photograph in Charlottesville, VA. She has presented her work at the “Pacific Rim International Conference on Disability and Diversity” in Honolulu, HI; at “Different Bodies: (Self) Representation, Disability and the Media” at the University of Westminster in London, U.K.; and was recently a presenter at “Critical Junctures” at Emory University in Atlanta, GA.
Sponsors
University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa’s Department of Art + Art History and College of Arts + Humanities; Hawai‘i State Foundation on Culture and the Arts, through appropriations from the Legislature of the State of Hawai‘i and by the National Endowment for the Arts; Halekulani Hotel – Hospitality Sponsor for the Arts at UH Mānoa; and anonymous donors.
Gallery hours + admission:
Mon. – Fri. 10:00 a.m. – 4:00 p.m., Sun. 12:00 p.m. - 4:00 p.m.
Closed Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Jan. 20.
Free admission. Donations are appreciated.
Parking fees may apply during weekdays. Parking is free on Sundays.
Directions
For more information please contact Sharon Tasaka at 808.956.8364 and gallery@hawaii.edu