M/otherLand

Curator: Maayan Sheleff
OnCurating Project Space, Zurich
Ausstellungsstrasse 16, 8005 Zurich
Opening: 17.09.2021, 5–9 pm
Dates: 18.09.2021– 9.10.2021

Welcome to the curiously futuristic and playfully dystopic archeological museum of Ruth Patir. Here, ancient masks taunt the viewer while female figurines are entranced in a desert rave; relics of wild boar discharge breast milk while fertility goddesses wait in an IVF clinic. Patir’s protagonists’ journey from one work to the next renders them captive in an odyssey that spans both past and future.
M/otherLand is a cross-generational 3D documentary saga that reimagines fertility goddesses from ancient Judean times as real-life mothers. The installation in the OnCurating gallery is comprised of films, multi-screen installations and 3D sculptures. The exhibition deals with the relations between gender representation, reproductive rights and state politics in the contemporary technocentric world.

The exhibition extends Ruth Patir’s exploration of the politics of gender in the digital age, employing experimental documentary and storytelling methods. She utilizes motion capture technologies and inscribes recordings of real body movements onto the ancient female statuettes – the archeological relics used for fertility rituals currently on display in the national collection of the Israel Museum. On the one hand, Patir releases these figurines from a certain stagnation in their historical gender roles, allowing them to explore their sexuality and femininity in new ways. On the other hand, she accentuates their captivity in a lineage of gender representation and techno-manipulation, complicating the relations between re/production and politics, labour ethics and going into labour.

Ruth Patir ( b. 1984, NY), is a multimedia artist and filmmaker. This is her first solo show in Europe. Patir’s works deal with gender paradigms and power relations, often mixing historical and national narratives with the artist’s own autobiography. In her works, Patir expands the boundaries of representation in the digital age working against the gender and racial biases that populate the field of animation, 3d simulations and Artificial Intelligence.
Patir’s work has been the subject of solo exhibitions at Danspace projects, New York Copperfield Gallery, London (online), and Hamidrasha Gallery, Tel Aviv. It has been featured in film festivals around the world including the Jerusalem Film Festival, where she won the Experimental Cinema and Video Art Award, and the New Directors/New Films festival at the Museum of Modern Art, New York. Her work has been part of numerous group exhibitions such as Manifesta in Zurich, Catinca Tabacaru Gallery, New York; CCA Tel Aviv; and the Petah Tikva Museum, Israel. Patir holds a BFA from Bezalel Academy of Art and Design Jerusalem, and an MFA from Columbia University in the city of New York, and she is currently based in Tel Aviv.

Opening hours during Zurich gallery weekend:
Saturday, September 18th: 11:00 – 20:00
Sunday, September 19th: 11:00 – 18:00
For individual appointments with the artist and curator, please get in contact with:
maayansheleff@gmail.com or ruthpatir@gmail.com
Opening hours 20.09.–9.10.2021:
Fridays & Saturday: 4–6pm
and by appointment: info@oncurating-space.or

The exhibition is supported by Artis and Artport