Feminist Center for Creative Work Presents Yves B. Golden’s The Burden Curated by Seta Morton

The Pit is thrilled to host the Feminist Center for Creative Work's latest Artist In Residence exhibition — a collection of sculptural works, a text, and programs by Yves B. Golden, curated by Seta Morton.  The exhibit, Golden’s first solo exhibition of sculptures, addresses the imperative to fight for humanity and dignity, amidst the violence of Western imperialism in our everyday lives.

“The show’s title is rooted in the negro spiritual “Down by the Riverside” — fitting for Golden’s work, which both attends and surrenders to the fluidity of water, and through this show, demands demilitarization,” writes Morton. “Golden has built an armory of all things glass, granular, and fragile. She is rendering weapons — gold bricks, daggers, and swords — out of a temperamental and fragile material.” The exhibit invokes the Book of Isaiah: “and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.”

Through the exhibition, Golden and Morton invite audiences to engage with these questions: How do we understand and reclaim our human rights (or the human rights of others) in the wake of war? Is global disarmament achievable without a universal understanding of dignity? “While conceptualizing this show overlapping humanitarian crises and genocides have intensified with the aid of American tax dollars,” writes Golden. “As artists, we are tasked with holding the truth close and refracting it back on our society to prompt discussion and, ideally, to lubricate cultural shifts which our societal continuity depends on.”

Golden and Morton’s work and practices represent a brilliant example of the rigorous, intersectional feminist art that FCCW will continue to support. This will be the 18th project of the Artist in Residence program, which presents new, multidisciplinary work by women, trans, and nonbinary artists. During the three-month residency, artists work on larger-scale projects that culminate in an exhibition and a series of programs that provide insight into their process and influences. Additionally, the residency results in a forthcoming publication that extends the impact of the project: The Burden, the book, will be available for purchase.