A century ago, Viktor Shklovsky introduced the concept of “defamiliarization” to describe art’s revolutionary potential. Facing a world beset by habituation, automatism, and alienation, he proclaims that art “exists so that one may recover the sensation of life.”

The COVID-19 pandemic has effected a thoroughgoing sense of defamiliarization — even the most quotidian habits have become strange. It has awakened a reflexivity in our relations to the objects of everyday life, making us more aware of the clothes we wear when leaving the house. Simultaneously, though, the domestic sphere has become the site for further habituation to technologies that imperceptibly extract value from our every utterance and gesture. While some seemingly intractable institutional norms may have been temporarily interrupted, others have been fortified. A sustained moment of emergency, the pandemic obliges us to assess what must be recast and resisted and what, if anything, may be recovered with care.

Refamiliarization brings together works of art — from performances and installations, to videos and sculptures — that unsettle our expectations of what is or could be “familiar.”

 
 
 

Refamiliarization

An art exhibition
@ Platform Artspace &
the Worth Ryder Gallery,
University of California, Berkeley

September 29 – October 1, 2021

 
 

Participating Artists

Alex Saum
Anxious to Make (Liat Berdugo + Emily Martinez)
Diego Orihuela
Dulphe Pinheiro-Machado
Edgar Fabián Frías
Hyunmin Ryu
Jennifer Jane Cannon
Max Horwich, Ashley Lewis, Katya Rozanova, & Emliy Saltz

 
 
 

Robert Rapoport
Roopa Vasudevan
Rosalie Yu
Rudolf Lingens
Tega Brain, Alex Nathanson, & Benedetta Piantella
Tim Feeney
VLM
Ziv Schneider & Bethany Tabor

 

Wednesday, 09 | 29

4–5:30pm | Opening Reception

5:30–7pm | Performance

The Estate of Our Friend Sylvia, by Ziv Schneider & Bethany Tabor

7:30–8:30pm | Screening

Composite Tests: Retrieval by Robert Rapoport, MILK by Hyunmin Ryu, Corporate Personhood Symposium by Rudolf Lingens

Thursday, 09 | 30

5:30–7pm | Processional Event

Embodying Our Collective Change by Edgar Fabián Frías

7:30–8:30pm | Screening

Brazil: Verse and Reverse by Dulphe Pinheiro-Machado, O, LUNA! by VLM, and Caroline by Tim Feeney

Friday, 10 | 01

4–5:30pm | Workshop

Breaking Bread, with Katya Rozanova, Emily Saltz, Ashley Lewis, and Max Horwich

5:30–7:30pm | Closing Party


Curated by Justin Berner and Julia Irwin

Made possible with support from:

The Berkeley Center for New Media | The Department of Art Practice

The Department of Film & Media | The Center for Latin American Studies

The Berkeley D-Lab | Townsend Center for the Humanities

Special thanks:

Jill Miller | Nassirah Nelson | LEVY dance & Ian W King