Mama’s Augmented Reality – a series of kitchen installations

On view: August – October, 2022 (see schedule below)
Location: Flux Factory on Governors Island, Colonels Row 404A

In the spirit of a “mother’s work” which traditionally embodies a DIY aesthetic- think

homemade fast food, cardboard costumes, sheet forts, pots and pans instruments-
Mama’s Augmented Reality is an exhibition that invites artists to create and interpret
their mom’s kitchens as they exist in memory with whatever materials they have at
their disposal. Just like a resourceful mother would do.

Mama’s Augmented Reality is homemade AR defined and interpreted by cheap art
practices. Works will be installed in the kitchen of Flux Factory’s residency home on
Governors Island August through October, 2022

Participating artists include:

Itala Aguilera
Abby Cheney
Li-Ming Hu

Curated by Eleni Zaharopoulos

Viewing Schedule:

Itala Aguilera, Aug 27-28 & Sep 3-4
Abby Cheney, Sep 24-25 & Oct 1-2
Li-Ming Hu, Oct 22-23 & Oct 29-30

Mama’s Augmented Reality is a collaboration between Flux Factory and the Institute
for Diasporic Yearning and Longing (IDYL), an itinerant research institute whose
mission is to create meaningful connections between places of origin and places of
habitat in an effort to alleviate nostalgia and melancholy for persons identifying as
strangers in a strange land. IDYL is the ongoing conceptual project of interdisciplinary
artist, Eleni Theodora Zaharopoulos.

Itala Aguilera (Mexico City)
Mamacita Kitchen, 2022
Mixed-media installation

On view: Aug 27-28 & Sep 3-4, 2022

Artist Statement

During my childhood, my mother was emotionally unstable; sometimes depressed,
sometimes loving. Her food remains in my memory as a bond I have to her as she
often used it to soothe emotional wounds and painful memories.

Mamacita Kitchen is a reinterpretation of the relationship I have with my mother,
painful but also soft and nurturing. The objects in this kitchen are second hand kitchen
appliances covered in repurposed underwear and sleepwear as well as hand-sculpted
ceramics- soft, malleable objects that become hard and small, like a present moment
crystallized in the past. The visual softness of the satins, mesh, and laces contrasts
with the aggressiveness of the knives, forks and other utensils evoking the ambivalent
emotions that underlie my mom’s kitchen.

Lastly, the nightgowns hung from the cupboards and as curtains (which used to
belong to my grandmother) are some sort of ghostly presence, as if my mother,
grandmother and the women in my family, are always present through the act of
feeding and nurturing me.