Don’t Be Tempted

Off-Center Gallery, Missoula MT, February 2018

Hand-carved photographic film, darkroom clips, fishing line, opaque projector, pollen, performance. Dimensions variable

Environmental ethics graduate student Rebecca Korf reads narrative accounts involving 30 deadly plants, with a series of delicate drawings etched on film displayed as visually appealing scientific specimens of the same lethal plants, lit by an opaque projector. The projector bulb, rather than projecting a precise image, floods the gallery with light, creating a sort of stage. It simultaneously heats a pile of pollen on a glass slide, gradually burning it throughout the performance and spreading its aroma and associated symptoms throughout the space.