Resonant Landscapes: Sci-Fi Narratives and Historical Echoes showcases Aryel René Jackson’s exploration of science fiction themes through a multi-faceted reinterpretation of past video works and archival imagery. This exhibition creates a tapestry of visual storytelling, weaving together past and future through mixed media panels, a sculptural installation, and stop motion animation using footage from Jackson’s 2023-2024 installation What it means: iterations of a welcoming place, curated by Julie Le, Assistant Curator as part of The Contemporary’s exhibition space and program series, HOST. Resonant Landscapes invites viewers into a speculative narrative that melds historical and futuristic elements, envisioning a futuristic automated meteorological system, whose evolving cultural data points continuously reshape its understanding of the world.
Aryel (Ar-y/ee-el) René Jackson (they/them) (born 1991, Louisiana) is a Texas-based artist whose practice consists of what they call “Visual Essays,” lyrical film works which utilize soil, performance, mimicry, and installation sculpture to reflect on critical race theory and archeological studies. Jackson considers how visual, tangible, and experiential material data impacts perception when speculating on the past. Influenced by their Afro-Kreyol Louisiana heritage and their experience as a Black American growing up in New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, Jackson's work focuses on ancestral wisdom and the memory that land holds in transmitting knowledge in preparation for the future. With a background in painting, Jackson has made a career of moving images informed by the techniques and strategies of their mixed media works on panel and canvas.
Jackson currently works in Austin, Texas, and will be working on an upcoming film as an artist-in-residency at Bemis Center (Fall 2024). They are an alum of The University of Texas at Austin (2019), the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture (2019), the Royal College of Art Exchange Program (2018), and The Cooper Union (2013). Their films have screened at the Museum of Modern Art, New York (2022); the Baltimore Museum of Art (2021); and The Momentary in collaboration with the Crystal Bridges Museum (2020). Jackson’s work has been exhibited at galleries and institutions such as Artpace, San Antonio (2022); Women & Their Work, Austin (2022); IDEA Lab, Art Gallery at Black Studies at The University of Texas at Austin (2021); Dallas Contemporary (2021); Jacob Lawrence Gallery, Seattle (2021); SculptureCenter, New York (2019); New Museum, New York (2019); Contemporary Art Center, New Orleans (2018); and the Studio Museum in Harlem (2016). In 2021, Jackson was awarded the Tito’s Art Prize and presented We are the [hackers], baby, [hackers] are we in collaboration with colleague Michael J. Love, tap-dancer and choreographer.
