Mimi Cherono Ng’ok @ Art Institute of Chicago

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Mimi Cherono Ng’ok @ Art Institute of Chicago

June 2nd, 2021 by fstop

Mimi Cherono Ng’ok: Closer to the Earth, Closer to My Own Body
June 18th, 2021 – February 7, 2022

“For more than a decade, Mimi Cherono Ng’ok has worked to understand how natural environments, botanical cultures, and human subjects coexist and evolve together. Working with an analog camera, she travels extensively across the tropical climates of the Global South constructing a visual archive of images that document her daily experiences and aid her in processing emotions and memories.

For her first solo museum exhibition in the United States, Cherono Ng’ok presents photographs and a film made across Africa, the Caribbean, and South America, all as part of an ongoing inquiry into the rich and diverse botanical cultures of the tropics. She tracked flowers and floral imagery across varied contexts—enshrouding the exterior of homes, emblazoned on bedspreads, encountered in nighttime flower markets—and a range of hidden associations. Some of the plants she pictures have been used as love potions or medicines, while others have been moved around the globe as part of histories of imperial or colonial expansion. Omitting frames, titles, or any indication of place allows Cherono Ng’ok to offer viewers an experience that is immediate, intimate, and vulnerable. To expose photographic prints in this way approximates the fragile and impermanent character of their depicted contents.”

Art Institute of Chicago
111 S Michigan Ave

Location: Chicago, Illinois, United States Type: Exhibition

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