Nene Humphrey “Transmission”

Lesley Heller Workspace

This event has ended.

Transmission, a new a multi-media installation by Brooklyn-based artist Nene Humphrey, examining ritualized spaces and the products of grief through a practice rooted in the integration of art and science.

Humphrey harnesses the now lost Victorian tradition of mourning braiding, where the hair of the deceased is plaited and turned into jewelry. As a long term artist-in-residence at New York University’s LeDoux Lab, Humphrey draws connections between happenings in the brain (in particular the intricate amygdala), the neurosciences of emotion, and the processes of mourning.

Presented inside a darkened space, low stools and a circular braiding table remain unoccupied save the ghostly video projections of their makers/mourner’s hands at work upon them. Two preparation tables- places of measuring and cutting- hold leftover tools, spools for winding wire, snippets, traces. Projected above are two videos of braiding and brain imagery, which together show their striking visual similarities.