Curators’ Statement

A contemporary retrospection 

HeartBurn: An analysis of memory, girlhood, womanhood, motherhood, safety, sacrifice, and the body. A response to the physical and psychological manifestation of nostalgia within the distinctly feminine. HeartBurn discusses collective longing for a world of the past, a time and place which may have never existed, formed only in the mind influenced by the ever-churning sea of unreliable, reconstructive memory. Envisioned through the lens of feminist theory, HeartBurn invites nine female-identifying artists from Europe, the U.S., and Canada to walk you hand in hand down memory lane. HeartBurn transports us to the liminal space between past and present, political and whimsical, dreamt and real, a world in which fairytales are told with a side of antacid, myths are unravelled, laying bare the untold narrative, and kitchen counters overflow with assemblage, bottles filled, toys strewn about. The seductive allure of nostalgia draws us in, providing a soft place rife with emotion and familiarity. The rose tint, over time, blurs the complexity and danger of subjugating the most vulnerable. What was once, and now what remains? 

As we consider what is closest to us, our locked away rooms in which we time travel, that of private and domestic life comes to the forefront, a setting which has been historically characterized by the feminine. Children, mothers, and grandmothers create a shared thread of memory, each paying homage to the last while establishing a still dreamt-of future. What lore do we cling to, and what is forever lost? Through the lens of our artists, HeartBurn asks the viewer to consider their lived experiences. To what end do we engage in collective escapism through nostalgia? 

There is no discussion of nostalgia without acknowledging culture. Nostalgia can be active in the present, reacting to wider happenings while still dealing with the neglected, with forgotten culture, and with histories. What is learned and what is unlearned? “We were able to be nostalgic both for certain cultural phenomena that had vanished, and for the time before the cultural phenomena had appeared, as if every world we lived in hid another world behind it, like stage scenery of a city hiding stage scenery of tiered meadows hiding stage scenery of ancient Illyria” (Ruins of Nostalgia 11 -Donna Stonecipher) When we consider how we have changed it is essential to understand that progressive change is feminist. We seek for HeartBurn to provide a catalyst for “the role of the arts in combating the erasure of past violence and creating new histories for change.” (Women Mobilizing Memory group) HeartBurn invites and encourages submission to the romanticization of the past. Indulge in fragmentation.

“If nostalgia is primarily aesthetic, then it is also unstable, and if we get attached to beautiful images today, we might spurn them tomorrow. We might love the beautiful images because we can’t apprehend them, ‘the beautiful’ always relocating itself, unrecognizable as the city outside, which is why we keep trying to rebuild the city in our minds. And it’s why we slather salve over SALVE, suffuse it, why we gold-leaf gold leaf. It’s why we ruin the ruins of nostalgia.” Ruins of Nostalgia 15 -Donna Stonecipher