hEARTH, 2017

Plaster, pigment, white sand, audio component (8 minutes looped), dimensions vary.

Desert X, curated by Neville Wakefield

Sunnylands Center & Gardens, Rancho Mirage, California  

Albuquerque confronts the viewer with a sound and sculptural installation that extends into performance. The encounter consists of a blue figure in the center of a field of white – one ear to the ground, listening. The sculpture, a cast of the artist’s daughter in plaster covered with ultramarine blue pigment, installed in a circle of white permits for the projection of a massive landscape and hearing on a much larger scale. Albuquerque posits that we must reconsider the importance of the activity of listening. As a part of the work, singers and dancers activate the grounds of Sunnylands with a performance created by Albuquerque in collaboration with Kristen Toedtman, of the Los Angeles Master Chorale, and dancer and choreographer, Jasmine Albuquerque.