Gala Porras-Kim investigates institutional and linguistic frameworks that define, legitimise and preserve cultural heritage.
2023 Biennial Year Find out more
Considering how oral traditions or archaeological remains of Mesoamerica are represented and exhibited, the artist underscores history’s methodological and ideological tools to analyse and ultimately control narratives and access to knowledge. Her work questions the ethical principles of museological conservation while also functioning as an invitation to imagine stories and invest new meanings to artefacts displayed inside museum vitrines or assembled in its storages.
Her work has been exhibited at: Contemporary Art Museum, St. Louis (2022); Gasworks, London (2022); Amant Foundation/Kadist, NY (2021); Gwangju Biennale, Korea (2021); São Paulo Biennial, Brazil (2021); MOCA Los Angeles (2019); Whitney Biennial, NY (2019); Ural Industrial Biennial (2019); and the Made in LA Biennial, Hammer Museum, Los Angeles (2016).Forthcoming solo exhibitions in 2023 include Centro Andaluz de Arte Contemporaneo, Seville, MUAC, Mexico City, Fowler Museum, Los Angeles.
She has received awards including Art Matters (2019), Artadia (2017), Joan Mitchell Foundation (2016), Creative Capital (2015) and the Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation (2015). She was a David and Roberta Logie Fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard (2019), and the artist-in-residence at The Getty Research Institute (2020-2022).
Liverpool Biennial 2023
'Out of an instance of expiration comes a perennial showing' (2022-ongoing)
Porras-Kim is interested in the evolution of objects throughout time. She studies archaeological and ethnographic collections and museums around the world to inquire into the ethics of conservation. In particular, she creates work around objects, artefacts and human remains held by institutions such as the British Museum, many of which were obtained from colonised countries.
‘Out of an instance of expiration comes a perennial showing’ contains mould spores from the British Museum’s storage, propagated on an agar-soaked cloth. The work subverts one of the main concerns in conservation around mould and decay and, instead of trying to prevent it, encourages its growth. Over the course of the exhibition, the mould spores and particles will develop, acting as co-authors to make a
Porras-Kim is interested in the evolution of objects throughout time. She studies archaeological and ethnographic collections and museums around the world to inquire into the ethics of conservation. In particular, she creates work around objects, artefacts and human remains held by institutions such as the British Museum, many of which were obtained from colonised countries. ‘Out of an instance of expiration comes a perennial showing’ contains mould spores from the British Museum’s storage, propagated on an agar-soaked cloth. The work subverts one of the main concerns in conservation around mould and decay and, instead of trying to prevent it, encourages its growth. Over the course of the exhibition, the mould spores and particles will develop, acting as co-authors to make a new object which is full of life. Through her removal of these mould cultures from their collection, Porras-Kim has also managed to take microscopic parts of the historical artifacts. As the artist states, ‘At some point, the mould spores ate objects in the collection, and by regrowing them in the space, we can see these objects reconstituting into a new form’. The work is an act of rebellion, which seeks to acknowledge lives which are often hidden, dismissed, or forgotten in order to construct an imagined idea of a historical past.
'Out of an instance of expiration comes a perennial showing' (2022-ongoing)
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Gala Porras-Kim, Out of an instance of expiration comes a perennial showing, 2022-ongoing. Installation view at Tate Liverpool. Photography by Stuart Whipps
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Gala Porras-Kim, Out of an instance of expiration comes a perennial showing, 2022. Propagated spores from the British Museum and potato dextrose agar on muslin Courtesy of the artist and Commonwealth and Council. Photo by Andy Keate
Liverpool Biennial 2023
'Future spaces replicate earlier spaces (shell instruments)' and 'Future spaces replicate earlier spaces (maya molds)' (2023)
Gala Porras-Kim is interested in the evolution of objects throughout time and studies archaeological and ethnographic collections in museums around the world to inquire into the ethics of conservation.
These intricate drawings depict a collection of ancient vessels, that generated a sound or form for an ancient function that is no longer available to us, brought together to propose a new activation. A drawing of shells, once used as ritual wind instruments, questions the sounds they would have made individually – a sound that recalls an earlier space and time, but now becomes a collective sound. A second drawing depicts empty moulds from an ancient factory. We see negative spaces in place of objects which are no longer present, with functions
Gala Porras-Kim is interested in the evolution of objects throughout time and studies archaeological and ethnographic collections in museums around the world to inquire into the ethics of conservation. These intricate drawings depict a collection of ancient vessels, that generated a sound or form for an ancient function that is no longer available to us, brought together to propose a new activation. A drawing of shells, once used as ritual wind instruments, questions the sounds they would have made individually – a sound that recalls an earlier space and time, but now becomes a collective sound. A second drawing depicts empty moulds from an ancient factory. We see negative spaces in place of objects which are no longer present, with functions that are no longer available, but which hold the potential to be reimagined and remade. Porras-Kim explores the difficulty of remembering, imagining and recreating specific sounds and acoustics from history, over time and across space. She examines the possibility of recovering or reproducing objects to help us understand how people in the past created and experienced physical and sonic spaces; exploring how we might remember and archive sonically, as well as visually.
'Future spaces replicate earlier spaces (shell instruments)' and 'Future spaces replicate earlier spaces (maya molds)' (2023)
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Antonio Obá, ‘Jardim’, 2022 and Gala Porras Kim ‘Future spaces replicate earlier spaces’, 2023 . Liverpool Biennial 2023 at Victoria Gallery & Museum. Courtesy of Liverpool Biennial. Photography by Mark McNulty
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Antonio Obá, ‘Jardim’, 2022 and Gala Porras Kim ‘Future spaces replicate earlier spaces’, 2023 . Liverpool Biennial 2023 at Victoria Gallery & Museum. Courtesy of Liverpool Biennial. Photography by Mark McNulty
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Gala Porras-Kim, Future spaces replicate earlier spaces (shell instruments), 2023 and Future spaces replicate earlier spaces (maya molds), 2023. Installation view at Victoria Gallery and Museum. Photography by Stuart Whipps.
Liverpool Biennial 2023
'Roll Call' (2023) - Audio, 6 mins 6 secs
Gala Porras-Kim is interested in the evolution of objects throughout time and studies archaeological and ethnographic collections in museums around the world to inquire into the ethics of conservation.
In the collections of the British Museum, there are many objects which are still embodying ancient people during their afterlife, in line with their beliefs. According to their wishes, their name was to be spoken as one of the directions they left for their preservation. Presented at World Museum, and produced for Liverpool Biennial 2023, ‘Roll Call’ acts as a piece of conservation work that takes the form of a reading of names of many of those associated with these objects.
In her practice, Porras-Kim explores the difficulty of remembering, imagining and recreating
Gala Porras-Kim is interested in the evolution of objects throughout time and studies archaeological and ethnographic collections in museums around the world to inquire into the ethics of conservation. In the collections of the British Museum, there are many objects which are still embodying ancient people during their afterlife, in line with their beliefs. According to their wishes, their name was to be spoken as one of the directions they left for their preservation. Presented at World Museum, and produced for Liverpool Biennial 2023, ‘Roll Call’ acts as a piece of conservation work that takes the form of a reading of names of many of those associated with these objects. In her practice, Porras-Kim explores the difficulty of remembering, imagining and recreating specific sounds and acoustics from history, over time and across space. She examines the possibility of recovering or reproducing objects to help us understand how people in the past created and experienced physical and sonic spaces; exploring how we might remember and archive sonically, as well as visually.
'Roll Call' (2023) - Audio, 6 mins 6 secs
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World Museum