K. Yoland
Standing at the water’s edge, I wonder if I might drown myself in my hypocrisy or whether the metaphorical kingdom of light has a place for even me. Have I placed my hat on so firmly that I do not realize it’s on backwards? I hesitate at the figurative border of nations and ideologies. To cross or not to cross? You cross and you’ve committed a crime. You don’t cross and you strengthen the system. And there lies the precipice. K. Yoland, excerpt from “Operation Tumbleweed,” Nasher Sculpture Center’s The Nasher, Fall 2018
K. Yoland, an artist currently living between the US and London, has come to be known for field-based, site-specific work that operates at the intersection of hybrid disciplines, incorporating the methodology and vocabulary of a documentary practice, fictional narratives, and political science. Embracing the absurd, the work often involves a variety of players enlisted in improvisation as well as choreography. Previous projects have included choreographing Danish dancers in a “war installation,” Olympic fencers on scaffolding, and working in 21 different day jobs in Paris in a durational look at community identity and alienation.
For this Tuesday Evenings presentation, Yoland is in conversation with Modern Curator of Education Terri Thornton as they consider the logistics, philosophical premise and form of such an ambitious and complex practice through two current projects: US/Mexico Border Project: Operation Tumbleweed, a multichannel video installation that chronicles the migration and movement of a kidnapped tumbleweed along the Mexican-American border; and Coastal Territory, for which Yoland works with the Department of Political Science and Department of Environmental Science at the University of West Florida.