Tag Archives: Fridman Gallery

Art, Chelsea Manning, History

Chelsea Manning and Heather Dewey-Hagborg: Together Again

By Lisa Rein

I wrote the Mondo2000 article “Why Chelsea Manning and Heather Dewey-Hagborg Speaking Together Today In Ann Arbor Is A Pretty Big Deal” to tell the story of my having the honor and privilege to work with Chelsea Manning and Heather Dewey-Hagborg on their fascinating and frighteningly-enlightening art projects :-) (via Mondo2000)

Heather Dewey-Hagborg and Chelsea Manning in Ann Arbor, MI

They spoke together in Ann Arbor, on March 15, at the University of Michigan, and in Pittsburg, on March 20, at the Carnegie Mellon School of Art.

Heather and Chelsea, with illustrator Shoili Kanungo made a beautiful little comic book about Chelsea and Heather’s first collaboration, “Radical Love.” The last frame of the Supressed Images comic book has Chelsea out of prison and looking at her own self-portraits for the first time. It was an emotional moment when it came true, and Heather helps me take a walk down memory lane, so we can bring you all sides of this amazing story :-)

Top pic: #11 of their Supressed Images comic book, published January 17, 2017.

Bottom pic: Chelsea at the installation at the Fridman Gallery, in New York City, in August 2018.

 

Seriously folks. We are talking about a dream come true ending here.
From “Probably Chelsea” at the Fridman Gallery, NYC.
Art, Chelsea Manning

Come to the Opening Reception for “A Becoming Resemblance” – August 2, 6-8pm – Fridman Gallery, NYC

Opening Reception – August 2, 2017 – 6-8pm

Fridman Gallery – 287 Spring Street, New York

Fridman Gallery is pleased to present A Becoming Resemblance, an exhibition by Heather Dewey-Hagborg and Chelsea E. Manning, investigating emerging technologies of genomic identity construction and our societal moment.

In 2015, Heather began to produce 3D printed portraits derived from the DNA extracted from cheek swabs and hair clippings Chelsea mailed out of prison. Incarcerated since her gender transition and subject to a strict policy on visitation, Chelsea’s image was suppressed from 2013 until her release from prison in May this year. The artistic collaboration with Heather gave Chelsea back a form of visibility, a human face she had been denied.

As Chelsea described the collaboration: “Prisons try very hard to make us inhuman and unreal by denying our image, and thus our existence, to the rest of the world. Imagery has become a kind of proof of existence. The use of DNA in art provides a cutting edge and a very post-modern—almost ‘post-post-modern’—analysis of thought, identity, and expression. It combines chemistry, biology, information, and our ideas of beauty and identity.”

More about A Becoming Resemblance In the Press: