CHICAGO-Volume Gallery is pleased to announce ArandaLasch with Terrol Dew Johnson COIL & CLOUD, opening February 25th from 5-8 pm at 1709 W Chicago Ave, Chicago IL 60622.
Building off their recent show at the MOCA Tucson, ArandaLasch presents baskets and furniture that connect the weaving practices of Native American tradition with contemporary design. Weaving is a material practice performed through ritual and repetition. It forms pattern and structure in simple materials to yield complex cultural artifacts. For ArandaLasch, architecture can be understood in much the same way. In Coil & Cloud, they work with weaver Terrol Dew Johnson of the Tohono O’odham tribe to explore the practice of coiling. Coiling is a type of weaving that starts with one central point around which a material is wound, spiraling outward and upward in concentric circles until structure is created. Extending this, the works in the show are built around the idea of a three-dimensional coil, a form both practical and symbolic. For the Tohono O’odham, baskets employ coiling as a structural strategy to create everyday objects, but also as a ritual which connects the maker to the community, their elders and the desert.
COIL & CLOUD continues through April 8th.
ArandaLasch designs buildings, installations, and furniture through a deep investigation of structure and materials. Recognition includes the United States Artists Award, Young Architects Award, Design Vanguard Award, AD Innovators, and the Architectural League Emerging Voices Award. Their early projects are the subject of the book, Tooling. ArandaLasch has exhibited internationally in galleries, museums, design fairs and biennials. Their work is part of the permanent collection of the MoMA in New York.
Terrol Dew Johnson (Tohono O’odham, b. 1973) is a community leader, nationally recognized advocate for Native communities and renowned artist. In 1996, Johnson co-founded Tohono O’odham Community Action (TOCA), a grassroots community organization dedicated to creating positive programs based in the O’odham Himdag–the Desert People’s Way. In 2002, Johnson and TOCA Co-Director Tristan Reader were recognized as one of the nation’s top leadership teams when they received the Ford Foundation’s Leadership for a Changing World Award. Johnson’s collaborations range from museum exhibitions to documentaries and book publications. In October 1999, Johnson was named one of “America’s top ten young community leaders” by the Do Something Foundation.
In 2009-10, Johnson walked from Maine to Arizona as a part of “The Walk Home: A Journey to Native Wellness,” bringing awareness to the crisis of Diabetes in Native communities and highlighting the ways in which communities have the capacity to create wellness by drawing upon their rich cultural traditions.
As an artist, Johnson began learning to weave baskets in school when he was just ten years old. He is now recognized as one of the top Native American basketweavers in the U.S. He has won top honors at such shows as Santa Fe Indian Market, O’odham Tash, the Heard Museum Fair and the Southwest Indian Art Fair. His work is in the permanent collections of museums such as the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of the American Indian and the Heard Museum. Today, Johnson combines basketry with other media such as bronze castings and gourds.
The show Meeting the Clouds Halfway in Tucson was curated by Alexandra Cunnigham Cameron and generously supported by The Museum of Contemporary Arts Tucson, Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts, The University of Arizona, CAPLA and Tohono O’odham Community College.
