Upcoming Exhibitions
An Optimized Garden by Hannah Newman
Opens Saturday, July 25th 6-9pm
Through Sunday, August 23rd
An Optimized Garden by Hannah Newman
Opens Saturday, July 25th 6-9pm
Through Sunday, August 23rd
In a world increasingly powered by artificial intelligences, An Optimized Garden expands the conversation into the open air. Transforming the backyard space of Gallery 1122 into a landscape teeming with digital and natural plant hybrids, the exhibition invites viewers to move through an environment where digital and organic systems collide and co-evolve.
As AI companies present AI as inevitable, the next stage of our human evolution, An Optimized Garden considers the ecological and human toll of a planet merged with AI. Throughout the exhibition, hand-built sculptures and paintings coexist with AI-generated imagery, combining natural and technological materials, including dried plant matter, silicon rocks, wires, circuit boards, and electronic debris. At the heart of the exhibition, an AI-generated voice narrates both the promises and the risks of AI’s entanglement with human and ecological systems.
Sprouting from the anxiety and unstable terrain of our contemporary moment, An Optimized Garden questions just what will take root from our new relationship with AI. Will the fruit of our gardens taste sweeter when everything is optimized?
Hannah Newman is an interdisciplinary artist reuniting digital technologies and experiences with their physical, emotional, and material sources. She has exhibited with galleries and artist-run spaces across the U.S.and has been awarded grants from the Regional Arts and Culture Council and Portland State University. Newman is a co-founder of the artist collective WAVE Contemporary and a former member of Carnation Contemporary. She received a Master of Fine Arts from Oregon College of Art and Craft and a B.S in Ceramics and Fine Arts from Indiana Wesleyan University. Newman currently lives and works in Portland, OR, where she serves as the Associate Director of Gather:Make:Shelter, a nonprofit that provides art opportunities for people experiencing houselessness. Newman believes individuals can create art, but together artists can create culture. She looks for spaces, communities and fellow artists with which to build intentional and inclusive culture.