CATALYST

CATALYST (featuring Tanya Aguiiga | Carla Gannis | Trulee Hall | Auriea Harvey | Bahareh Khoshooee | Caroline Sinders | Sammie Veeler)  
Virtual exhibition featuring artworks by participating artists (interactive HTML + 8K stand-alone app, Windows/Mac OS compatible file with hi-res audio, viewable on VR headsets)  
Interactive HTML (1.2GB) / 8K stand-alone app (2.8GB)  
Edition of 4 + 8 AP  
_____________________________

EPOCH is proud to present, CATALYST, a group exhibition in collaboration with Honor Fraser Gallery. EPOCH is partnering with Honor Fraser to mount our first hybrid physical/virtual installation. The exhibition features seven internationally celebrated artists who have developed artworks which are situated within a speculative 3D model of LACMAs forthcoming building, designed by Peter Zumthor. Like chemicals in a laboratory or warm sunlight grazing photosensitive emulsion, the artists in CATALYST use their artwork to provoke and accelerate change, whether that be personal, social, or political.  

CATALYST, EPOCHs collaboration with Honor Fraser, is the third chapter in a triptych of virtual exhibitions each set within and around a digital representation of LACMAs campus. The first two exhibitions in EPOCHs LACMA Saga PHANTOM LIMB and ECHOES can be understood as architectural precursors to CATALYST. The exhibitions environment in PHANTOM LIMB was inspired by and modeled after the demolition of LACMAs Ahmanson building. The term phantom limb in context became a metaphorical framework to suggest a sense of loss and displaced feelings of pain and growth. The second exhibition in the series, ECHOES, developed in collaboration with LACMAs Art + Technology Lab, was modeled after the physical excavation area of LACMAs east campus, as well as neighboring locales around Wilshire Boulevard. The term echo refers to the reverberation of ideas, movements, or events that, like sound waves, collide and coalesce at sites of creative exchange.

Unlike the two exhibitions before it, CATALYST plays out in both physical and virtual environments. Building upon the themes of PHANTOM LIMB and ECHOES, CATALYST is set in a post-apocalyptic LA, drawing inspiration from LACMAs forthcoming building. This digital environment is experienced using VR headsets placed within a physical installation at Honor Fraser. The interior of the digitally fabricated museum is clean and undisturbed  nearly tomb-likewhere viewers can interact with artworks safe from the compounding disasters unfolding outside of the museums colossal glass windows. The architectural contours of the forthcoming museum are replicated outside of the headsets, transforming Honor Fraser white walls into undulating partitions of translucent fabric and warm LA light.

The curation and corresponding environments invite us to question the role and responsibilities of our cultural institutions, as well as who these spaces best represent and serve. In turn, CATALYST allows viewers to consider the utility of a single idea/vision/object/building to provoke change in two moments in time  virtually in the present and physically in the future.

______________________________

Links: [8k interactive stand-alone app](https://nftstorage.link/ipfs/bafybeidwkpqbl4s7wysn2rpu46bo74qgheqne62jt5koyijjpgcr7bdkfa) | [Artwork list catalog](https://nftstorage.link/ipfs/bafybeidmkei7ek4ohdcje7izgxxq7gsip7ngcflag2aq223hiqxzkhtdve) | [Collector"s Agreement](https://nftstorage.link/ipfs/bafybeifirruukpoerfvsyg2ixn5vrthbnmoz4mpqd2mbxw57tfx4suaeb4)