ABOUT
@bu_graphicdesign
@bostonpainting
@pmp.bu
@bostonsculpture
@buvisualnarrative
she/her
Helena Abdelnasser
I am a visual artist who grew up in a culture in which science, myths, and ritualistic spirituality are coexisting and at times overlapping. My installation work is often composed of biodegradable ingredients used for their cultural and political symbolism to retell stories about humans’ desire to control the uncontrollable; generally, that which is natural.
By playing with both logic and materials, my work creates absurd settings in which architecture, infrastructure, animals, and bureaucracies become active characters. These characters construct narratives centered around themes of consumer culture, institutional structures, and the industrialization of nature.
The impermanence of my work results in performative installations that are constantly enduring change through decomposing, melting, or sprouting—all in the interest of allowing unexpected narratives to develop over time. According to the logic of this world, the words of an email are blooming and wilting, the fish are melting, and three dead pigeons are sprouting near a garden fence.
Why is there a tendency to preserve? And how much assertion of control goes into attempts to preserve? These parable-like settings offer an alternative logic that questions what it is like to not be able to control a situation.
Paraffin wax, animal gelatin, heating lamps, welded steel, and toxic fumes, 62 × 27 in.
Chia seeds on paper, 60 × 40 in.
Baked dough, 40 × 23 in.
Grass, mud, painted pine wood, 47 × 20 in.
Video (30 min.), wax letters, steel, and heating lamp,
20 × 24 in.