[recombinant] fellows: RA | Curated by Camilo Álvarez, Samsøñ

Please join us on November 5 from 7-9 pm for the opening reception of our annual group exhibition in which the Hamiltonian Fellows create new work with a prompt from an invited guest curator. The artists and the curator will be in attendance.

This year’s encounter, titled [recombinant] fellows: RA, is curated by Camilo Álvarez of Samsøñ, a gallery and artist residency in Boston, MA. Samsøñ creates and presents programs that explore the diversity of cultures and voices that continually shape contemporary art and ideas today, introducing emerging and under-recognized artists as well as re-contextualizing established artists.

[recombinant] fellows: RA is the result of a trip to Boston in which the Hamiltonian Fellows were challenged to consider the viewer’s experience as observed within the “laboratory” of varied contexts including the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Harvard’s Ethelbert Cooper Gallery of African and African American Art, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s public art collection and List Visual Art Center. The resulting exhibition is the product of their consideration of audience engagement.

Eight isolates collected in the region were analyzed using available ontological sources and molecular typing assays. Surprisingly, despite the fact that all isolates except one, which was a mix in(af)fection, were typed as belonging to the strain in-on-(in)dependent molecular assays, all of them re(d)acted with both specific and non-specific monoclonal bodies. Partial sequence analysis on fo(u)r isolates demonstrated that, irrespective of their reactivity towards a and in specific monoclonal body, they were all closely related to a and the recombinant isolate. All isolates for/in which the relevant sequence was obtained showed the same recombination event as in the, around position. Complete sequencing did not provide evidence for additional recombination events in its evolutionary history. Taken together, these results indicate(d) that a group of closely related isolate-s characterized by a unique recombination prevalent under field conditions in the region. Similar to the situation with the strain, we propose that these isolates represent a novel st(r)ain, for which the name, relative assertion [RA], is proposed. Given that isolates cannot be identified by currently available typing techniques; it is possible that their presence has been overlooked in other situations. Further efforts and information allow a precise description of their prevalence and of their geographical distribution here and, possibly, in (an)other are(n)as. The full and precise message is only attainable through an energetic diversive sampling.

– Camilo Álvarez (10.16)

click here to download a copy of the press release

November 5 – December 17, 2016

Opening Reception:
November 5, 2016
7-9 pm

Photos by Michael Schiffer