Defining Space: Systems, Bodies, and Borders - Raul Iniguez Chavira
Defining Space:
Space is not merely a void or a physical dimension. It is a construct shaped by all things around, including politics, culture, and imagination. From the immeasurable size of the cosmos to the minuscule interior of the human body, space serves as a framework for understanding the universe as a site where social, biological, and architectural forces unfold. Throughout history, artists and scientists have explored the concept of space, mapping its boundaries, visualizing the unseen, and questioning who has access to it and why. In this exhibition, you will see different ways in which artists have responded to how space is defined, experienced, and contested in the contemporary world.
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Space
noun
1. the vast, incalculable expanse that holds all material objects and events, and the material forces, ideas, and systems through which we attempt to understand the universe.
Juno Listens to Jupiter's Auroras
NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/University of Iowa
2016
The Juno spacecraft launched from Earth on August 5, 2013. After nearly five years, the spacecraft first reached Jupiter in 2016. During its first pass, the spacecraft captured radio frequencies that were then converted into audible frequencies. The result is an eerie, haunting sound that offers a sensory experience with the largest planet in our solar system. This work expresses the relation found between science and art, allowing listeners to perceive an otherwise invisible phenomenon. Reflecting the fact that much of our local space is still unknown and how technology can help expand our perception of outer space.
Orbital Reflector
Trevor Paglen
2018
In 2018, Trevor Paglen launched Orbital Reflector, a non-functional satellite designed to be a "purely artistic" object in space. Once in orbit, the sculpture would release a reflective mylar balloon that would be visible from Earth with the naked eye, becoming a temporary "artificial star" in the night sky.
Initially, the satellite was supposed to last three months in orbit, after which it would disintegrate upon reentry into the Earth's atmosphere. U.S. Air Force and the FCC would assist in tracking and permitting satellite deployment. However, the deployment was delayed due to miscommunication and the 2018-2019 U.S. government shutdown. By the time the shutdown ended, the museum engineers had lost contact with the satellite. Ultimately, the satellite became lost in orbit, rendering it "space junk."
Despite the failure, Orbital Reflector remains a powerful conceptual piece challenging conventual uses of space.
The Day the Earth Smiled
NASA/JPL-Caltech
2013
On July 19, 2013, NASA's Cassini spacecraft turned its camera back toward Earth from its position near Saturn. In the image, our planet appears as a tiny blue dot beneath Saturn's majestic rings. Titled The Day the Earth Smiled, the photograph was part of a coordinated event that invited people around the world to look up at the sky and wave back at Cassini. Set up by planetary scientist Carolyn Porco, the moment was both scientific and symbolic as a reminder of our planet's smallness in the vast expanse of the universe and the uniqueness and singularity of life on Earth. The image serves as a reflection on humanity's place in the cosmos and how the physical, political, and social boundaries we create appear borderless from space.
Solid Light Works
Anthony McCall
2018
Anthony McCall's Solid Light Works projects light in a large hazing room, creating large light sculptures. The piece expands on the definition of space as a large, infinite emptiness shaped by perception. The haze makes the lights look solid and structural, but they are ultimately intangible in how one can walk through them. The pieces aren't meant to confine or set a boundary but rather to make one feel like they are floating through a cosmic environment, much like we are through the universe. This meditative piece replicates the feeling of empty, infinite space when space becomes a sculptural material. The message is about perceiving, moving through, and shaping space with one's own body.
Sun Tunnels
Nancy Holt
1973
Sun Tunnels by Nancy Holt is a monumental land art installation in the Great Basin Desert in Utah. It comprises four large concrete cylinders aligned with the sunrise and sunset during the summer and winter solstices. Small holes drilled into the surface of the cylinders cast constellations onto the interior surface, mapping celestial bodies onto earthbound structures. Holt's work makes us contemplate our place within the vast expense of the cosmos. Her work bridges astronomical bodies with human interaction, rendering the unseen cosmic movement visible and tangible. The empty void of the desert makes it a medium for the cosmic forces in the visually empty void of the cosmos. Sun Tunnel challenges viewers to engage with space not as static but as a dynamic force shaped by light, time, and perspective.
Earthime 1.78 Madrid
Janet Echelman
2018
The Earth Time series is a collection of monumental fiber sculptures suspended in the air that float and ripple in response to the wind. In Earthtime 1.78 Madrid created by artist Janet Echelman, refers to the 1.78 seconds that were shaved off Earth's rotation after a massive 2011 earthquake in Japan, an invisible shift in time with planetary consequences. The sculpture, composed of intertwined fibers, serves as a symbol of interconnectedness. Even the slightest shift of knots changes the location of every knot on the sculpture surface in a never-ending dance of human-made creation with the forces of nature beyond our control. Earthtime 1.78 Madrid calls attention to the intersection of space, time, and human perception. Redefining a public space not as fixed and structural but as elastic and responsive, like the Earth itself.
CERN I
Alejandro Guijarro
2012
In the Momentum series, Alejandro Guijarro captures the exploration of quantum theory at various institutions. Covered in equations, arrows, and half-erased symbols, the board becomes a snapshot of the short-lived moment in scientific reasoning, when one moment you are working on a particular equation and the next you are on another.
Although technically different from other pieces, Guijarro's work captures the technical definition of space. Highlighting the logic and reason needed to calculate and understand functions and properties of space. The photographs stand as portraits of the otherwise unseen mathematical complexity of the space around us.
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Space
noun
2. the layered infrastructure through which people are moved, seen, and socially positioned.
Alex MacLean
Houston Aerial, 1982
1982
Alex Maclean is a pilot and aerial photographer who explores the complex relationship between the built environment and natural landscape. His decades-long career has focused on documenting the visible effects of human activity from a bird's eye perspective. In Houston Aerial, MacLean captures an expansive parking complex constructed on the land of Houston's historic Third Ward, a predominantly black neighborhood. The image reveals the scale of urban restructuring that led to the displacement of over 10,000 residents in favor of car-centric infrastructure. Maclean highlights not only the patterns of development but also the social and spatial inequalities that such transformation reflects, making the invisible consequence of planning visible from above.
Residenetial Security Map of Memphis, Tennessee
Home Owners' Loan Corporation
1937
In the 1930s, the U.S. government's Home Owners' Loan Corporation created "Residential Security Maps" for major cities to assess mortgage lending risk. The maps color-coded neighborhoods based on racial and economic demographics. Neighborhoods colored in green received an "A" grade and were deemed "safe" for banks when determining who should receive loans and which areas were safe investments. Neighborhoods colored in red received the lowest grade, "D," and were deemed hazardous. Today, this process is known as redlining.
Although this happened nearly a century ago, the effects of redlining persist today. The neighborhoods once marked in red still face lower property values, underfunded schools, higher pollution, and limited healthcare and grocery options. Meanwhile, formerly "greenlined" neighborhoods continue to benefit from generational wealth built through home ownership and public investment. The HOLC map reveals how space can be used not just as geography but as a tool to enforce inequality. Illustrating how power can shape physical and social landscapes.
City of Darkness Revisited
Greg Girard
2014
Photographer Greg Girard documents the living conditions of Hong Kong's Kowloon Walled City, once the most densely populated place on Earth. Girard's dimly lit, layered, and intimate images reveal a labyrinth of improvised structures, communal living, and human resilience within extreme spatial constraints. More than a curiosity of urban history, these images stand as a reminder of the metaphor Kowloon represented in how people redefine architectural space under pressure, transforming disorder into function and confinement into community instead of portraying an ecosystem of survival shaped by both necessity and ingenuity.
Shrinking Room
Jason Manley
2017
According to a study by UCSC's sociology department, 80% of Americans share only 7% of the nation's wealth. Artist Jason Manley built a wooden sculpture representing the disproportionate slice. The wider end of the slice is open so one can see the tightness and confinement of the space, mirroring the economic constraint faced by most Americans. On the walls are 25 quotes from activists and philosophers that comment on greed, class disparity, and societal structures. The sculpture is made from pallet board planks, further emphasizing the economic precarity and labor often hidden behind systems of inequality. Manley's Shrinking Room serves as a symbol and metaphor for the challenges the majority of Americans face. By literally showing the space and social construct most Americans are forced to, Manley raises conversation on economic inequality.
paraSITE
Michael Rakowitz
1998
In an effort to create habitable shelters for the homeless, Michael Rakowitz created paraSITE, inflatable shelters directly attached to commercial buildings. Made from plastic bags and connected to the HVAC system of a nearby building, the structure inflates and provides excess warm air, creating a temporary refuge from the cold. These portable units are not only acts of survival but also statements against the environment built around people. By attaching to and drawing byproduct resources from the infrastructure of wealthier institutions, paraSITE makes visible the disparities in access to shelter, warmth, and stability. The project brings awareness to how cities are designed around who is allowed to use a specific space and under what conditions. paraSITE serves as a critique of systemic neglect towards the unhoused population and how cities can reimagine space to care for all inhabitants.
Revival Field
Mel Chin
1990
Revival Field is an ongoing eco-art project that transforms and reclaims contaminated soil. The initial test site was at the Pig Eye's Landfill in St. Paul, Minnesota, where Chin, along with the help of other scientists, planted hyperaccumulator plants capable of extracting heavy metals from the toxic soil. Scientific analysis confirmed the project works as a low-cost method for "Green Remediation," using art to remediate damaged lands. Revival Field forces us to expland the definition of biological space to include ecosystems altered by industry and neglect. It makes us ask whether art can truly reclaim what was lost, and if damaged space still has a chance. Chin's work answers these questions with a resounding yes, turning a once dead-zone into a site of renewal and possibility.
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Space
noun
3. physical, emotional, and cultural separation between people.
Rafael Lozano-Hemmer
Border Tuner / Sintonizador Fronterizo
2019
Rafael Lozano-Hemmer is an electronics artist best known for creating interactive installations in public spaces. His work often explores the themes of connection, surveillance, and the politics of space. Border Tuner is a large-scale light and sound installation that connects people on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico Border in El Paso and Ciudad Juarez. Border Tuner confronts how boundaries shape relationships by using powerful searchlights activated by participants' voices. The installation literally brings light and audio to space typically defined by division and control.
National Geographic Map
Paola de la Calle
2020
Paola de la Calle is an artist whose work explores home, identity, and borders. In her work, National Geographic Map, she reclaims and redefines the borders drawn on a National Geographic map of bird migration. Overlayed is a powerful handwritten message in Spanish: "We meet/ Between eyes and tears/ Between heart and blood/ Between opposing poles/ Between blue and blue."The phrases speak to displacement, emotion, and interconnectedness, evoking the migrant experience. By using a bird migration map, de la Calle draws the parallels between animal migration and human migration - both natural, necessary and often politicized. Redefining geographic space not as a fixed border but as a living, emotional landscape shaped by movement, memory, and belonging.
The New American Gothic
Criselda Vasquez
2019
In The New American Gothic, Criselda Vasquez reimagines Grant Wood's iconic 1930 painting by focusing on her own Mexican American parents as subjects. Standing firmly in front of their home with the same upright posture and solemn expression of the original painting, Vasquez's parents are surrounded by symbols of labor and resilience. Highlighting the hidden daily reality of migrant workers and reworking the original canonical American image. This work challenges traditional narratives of space, particularly domestic and national space, by inserting brown bodies into a visual vocabulary that has long excluded them. In doing so, Vasquez establishes that immigrant families are not outsiders to American identity but foundational to its very structure
Pacific Gold
Narsiso Martinez
2021
Drawn from his own experience as a farmworker, Narsiso Martinez's work focuses on the people performing the labor necessary to fill produce aisles and restaurant kitchens around the country. His work makes visible the difficult labor and challenging conditions of the "American farmworker," itself a statement about the industry's conspicuous use of undocumented workers. In Pacific Gold, Narsiso captures a peacokck standing next to a farmworker smiling, putting her hands out. The peacock, a symbol of wealth and pride, stands next to the worker, suggesting the worker's feeling of giving despite the exploitive labor conditions often faced by migrant workers. The image becomes a quiet act of resistance, dignity, and self-worth, reclaiming space for humanity and generosity of laborers too often rendered invisible.
Law of the Journey
Ai Weiwei
2017
Ai Weiwei's monumental installation confronts the ongoing global refugee crisis through a 70-meter-long black rubber boat filled with 258 faceless human figures. The sculpture is made from the same material as the actual refugee vessel, serving as both literal and symbolic, as it highlights mass displacement, dehumanization, and the consequences of political inaction. By rendering each figure identical, it alludes to the erasure of individual identity found in humanitarian crises.
Within the theme of defining space, this work challenges viewers to consider borders not just as geography but as deeply politicized barriers that determine who belongs and who does not. Law of the Journey embodies the tension between physical space and human rights, illustrating the precarious and often invisible space that migrants are forced to navigate.
As Far As My Fingertips Take Me
Tania El Khoury
2016
In As Far As My Fingertips Take Me, artist Tania El Khoury invites audience members into an intimate one-on-one encounter through a gallery wall. On the audience side is a chair, a hole in the wall, and headphones playing a song about the experience of refugee migration. On the other side is Basal Zaraa, a Palestinian refugee born in Syria who shares a story on displacement, resistance, and resilience through the words in the song and touch. The audience members and Zaraa's arms touch without seeing each other. While the audience listens to the music, Zaraa draws on their arms about the refugee experience. The intimate encounter explores empathy and whether we need to literally "feel" a refugee to understand the reality of the situation. The title of the performance is a reference to actions European nations have been taking to database refugees using their fingertips and later returning them to the locations where their fingertips were first recorded.
The performance differs from the visual expectations of traditional art, focusing more on bodily space, memory, and empathy. El Khoury's work pushes the boundaries of interpersonal space by shortening the distance between audience and artist, self and other, and across borders. It offers a powerful mediation and makes visible the unseen physical and emotional imprints of forced migration.
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Space
noun
4. the internal architecture of living organisms, composed of cells, tissues, and microscopic systems that define the structure and function of life both as it exists naturally and as it is reimagined through human intervention.
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Glass Microbiology
Luke Jerram
2009
Luke Jerram is a multidisciplinary artist known for transforming complex scientific data into visually compelling artworks. Jerram often collaborates with scientists and researchers, bridging the gap between science and art. Glass Microbiology is a series of hand-blown glass sculptures representing viruses such as HIV, COVID-19, and E. coli. Though visually beautiful, the sculptures depict organisms that have caused widespread illness and even death, confronting viewers with the tension between aesthetic and biological reality.
Lovesick: The Transfection
Heather Dewey-Hagborg
2019
Heather Dewey-Hagborg is a bio-artist/biohacker whose work explores the connection between art, science, and technology. With a background in computer science, her projects frequently use biological data as artistic material. Lovesick: The Transfection is a bio-art project that contains a genetically engineered virus that aims to increase the production of the hormone oxytocin, or "the love hormone." The piece intends to explore the idea of love as a biological imprint that can be replicated and preserved. While poetic, it also has an unsettling tone, highlighting the ethical and emotional implications of synthetic biology and genetic engineering. This piece serves as a powerful example of how emerging technologies redefine our understanding of life, intimacy, and the boundaries of human experience.
Victimless Leather
Ionat Zurr and Oron Catts
2004
In recent years, the increased demand for leather products has raised ethical concerns over the way leather is sourced, particularly in the slaughter of animals. Artists and researchers Oron Catts and Ionat Zurr tackled the matter by genetically engineering bone and mouse cells over a biodegradable polymer scaffold. The result is Victimless Leather, a tiny stitchless jacket grown from living cells. Rather than relying on animal hides, the duo used tissue engineering techniques to cultivate a "semi-living" structure. Embracing biotechnology but also provoking deeper questions about our relationship to life, control, and consumption.
The piece was ultimately "killed" when the cells began to grow rapidly and clogged the incubator system while on exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. This act highlighted the paradox at the heart of the work that even in maintaining cruelty-free leather, ethical costs may still be imposed.
This work occupies a space at the boundary of biology and art, pushing the concept of "biological space" into speculative and ethical territory. By making visible the invisible process of genetic engineering and cellular manipulation, Victimless Leather asks not just what we can create with life but whether we should.
Malamp: Reliquaries
Brandon Ballengée
2001
Brandon Ballengée is an artist, biologist, and environmental activist who, since 1996, has focused on investigating the occurrence of developmental deformities in amphibians. In 2001, he released Malamp: Reliquaries, a series exploring biological space that revealed the internal structures of these amphibians and exposed the consequences of ecological disruption at the biological level. The deformed frogs, products of pollution and disrupted environments, embody the invisible biological systems at play with nature, including genetics and its mutations. By bringing his work to light, Ballengée invites us into a space where biology and art converge, emphasizing that biological space is not just the physical makeup of living beings but the invisible forces that shape life.
Bioluminescent Wedding
Hunter Cole
2017
One function of bioluminescence in nature is to attract a mate. Artist and scientist Dr. Hunter Cole used this concept to illuminate the invisible world of biology through a deeply personal lens. In the series Bioluminescent Wedding, Dr. Cole uses genetically engineered bioluminescent bacteria to create glowing wedding portraits. Dr. Cole arranges the bacteria in the shape of a rose in petri dishes. The result is a blue glowing rose, symbolizing mystery and ambiguity. These photgraphs serve as a demonstration of how biological life can be both a medium and a message. Merging the lines between biology and art.
Regenerative Reliquary
Amy Karle
2016
Bio-artist Amy Karle created Regenerative Reliquary to explore the unique interaction between art, design, science, and technology and what it means to be human. Karle created a human-hand-shaped structure by using a 3-D printed hydrogel scaffold seeded with stem cells, cells with the potential to develop into any type of cell. This piece invites reflection on regeneration, healing, and the merging of science with existential questions on mortality relating to potential medical uses. By proposing the body as both material and medium, Karle raises critical questions like Who owns the body? How far should we go in shaping or regenerating human tissue? This piece challenges viewers to consider the moral responsibilities of creating with and within biological space, raising one last question: What does it mean to design life?
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