13FOREST Gallery is pleased to present Exquisite Entanglement, an exhibition featuring new work by Yuko Oda and Allison Maria Rodriguez.

As global leadership struggles to take decisive action to combat climate change, and politicians continue to deny the increasingly apparent impacts of a warming planet, artists Yuko Oda and Allison Maria Rodriguez reflect the urgent need to raise awareness and fight for change. Their work employs a hybrid approach, merging activism and aesthetics, fine art and technology, the natural and synthetic. Ultimately they see their hybrid approach as the key to addressing climate change; science and art must work together to inspire action and create solutions.

In Exquisite Entanglement, Oda presents an imagined cycle of death and rebirth. Working in vibrant Japanese pigment on paper with elements of iridescent plastic, Oda begins with her Winged Detonations series, showing delicate hummingbirds exploding after contact with destructive human forces. The shattered hummingbirds then begin to merge with chrysanthemums on a journey to becoming a new species. In Full Bloom, this hybrid species thrives in its new reality. For Oda, this violent yet beautiful cycle reflects “nature’s calamities, resilience, and power to heal.” In an accompanying installation, Əvolution, 3D printed dew drops transform and change into organic leaves, integrating natural forms with synthetic materials.

In conversation with Oda, Rodriguez presents her multi-channel video installation Once in a Lifetime. The central image of the installation is a stranded blue whale on Playa Cabuyal in Costa Rica. The opportunity to encounter the world’s largest creature, while described as “once in a lifetime,” was also challenging for the artist. Juxtaposed with imagery of hatchling sea turtles struggling to return to the ocean, Rodriguez’ documentation of the blue whale serves as both a memorial and a moving reminder of our collective dependence on water to survive. The immersive nature of the installation evokes a powerful connection between the whale, the hatchlings, and the viewer, reflecting the interconnectedness of our species while revealing the fragility of existence.

Oda and Rodriguez do not shy away from exposing the death and suffering caused by human-made climate change. However while exploring the darkness of our environmental challenges, both artists make a point to search out light and beauty as well. Though it is easy to feel hopeless when faced with the scope of climate change, Oda and Rodriguez demonstrate the necessity of hope and beauty if we are to envision a new future for our planet. Exquisite Entanglement urges us to see our inextricable connection with the environment and reminds us of our responsibility to remake the world.

On view July 23 - September 23, 2022

Sat 8/6, 4-6 pm: Opening Reception
Sat 9/17, 4-6 pm: Art as Activism - a conversation with Yuko Oda and Allison Maria Rodriguez

Exquisite Entanglement was featured in the Globe; read the article here.

About the Artists

Yuko Oda received her Bachelor of Arts from Duke University in Visual Arts and Philosophy in 1997 and a Master of Fine Arts in Sculpture from Rhode Island School of Design (2002). Oda was born in Japan.  After more than fifteen years living in New York, she moved to Boston in 2017.  She is currently teaching in the Art and Design Department at University of Massachusetts, Lowell.

Oda’s drawings, animations and installations have been exhibited at SIGGRAPH Asia (China), Beijing Today Art Museum, Dumbo Arts Festival (NY), Hynes Convention Center Art Program (MA), Boston Center for the Arts, Boston Cyberarts Gallery, Boston Sculptors Gallery, Annemarie Sculpture Garden and Art Center (MD), Maki Fine Arts Gallery (Japan), and the Rhode Island School of Design Museum, among others. Her drawings were part of the Drawing Center’s Viewing Program in New York City. Oda has also been an artist in residence at the Vermont Studio Center, Chashama North Residency (NY), Goetemann Artist Residency (MA), Byrdcliffe Artist Residency (NY), and the Painting Residency at the School of Visual Arts (NY).

Allison Maria Rodriguez is a first-generation Cuban-American interdisciplinary artist working predominantly in video installation. Her work focuses extensively on climate change, species extinction and the interconnectivity of existence. Through video, digital animation, performance, photography, drawing, collage and installation, Rodriguez creates immersive experiential spaces that challenge conventional ways of knowing and understanding the world. Her work has been exhibited locally and internationally, in both traditional and non-traditional art spaces, such as the deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum (currently in the 2022 New England Triennial) and Boston Children’s Museum. Rodriguez is currently a Brother Thomas Fellow (2021-2022) of The Boston Foundation, and has previously been awarded an Earthwatch Communications Fellowship (2018) and the grand prize at the Creative Climate Awards (2017). In 2019 she was honored by WBUR as one of “The ARTery 25,” a celebration of 25 millennials of color impacting Boston’s arts and culture scene.

In addition to her practice, Rodriguez is also a curator, educator and arts organizer. She received her MFA from Tufts University/The School of the Museum of Fine Arts and holds a BA in Language, Literature and Culture from Antioch College in Ohio, obtained also through study at Oxford University in England and Kyoto Seika University in Japan.

Rodriguez was the winner of  13FOREST Gallery's Día de los Muertos Installation Project grant in 2017. Read about the installation she designed for the gallery here.