Paula Wilson “Spread Wild: Pleasures of the Yucca”

Smack Mellon

[Image: Paula Wilson "Spread Wild: Pleasures of the Yucca" video with sound (2018) 6:00 min.]

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Paula Wilson’s mixed-media installation transforms Smack Mellon’s industrial space into a landscape resembling the high desert plains of New Mexico where the artist lives. Central among the flora and fauna depicted are the yucca plant and yucca moth. Their pollination ritual represents a quintessential example of mutualism, which Wilson reimagines as a love scene. A video shows naturalists manifesting the pollinating dance, while printed wall hangings illustrate larger than life figurative representations of embodied stages of the yucca plant: blossom, pod, seed. By portraying an untold narrative of black and brown ecologists, Wilson draws connections between the human rights and environmental movements and offers a paradigm for how embracing the natural world can engender harmony.