Second Saturdays: The Kitchen
Mar 14, 2015

On Saturday, March 14, YI Leaders and New York City teens visited The Kitchen, (a nonprofit performance and art space in Chelsea), to see the exhibition, Anika Yi: You Can Call Me F. Curated by Lumi Tan, Associate Curator at the Kitchen the exhibition explored provocative ideas about paranoia, politics, and the female figure. 

YI Leaders led the group in an icebreaker before meeting Tan and discussing some of themes in Yi’s work. We started by asking the group a question, which was a spin on the normal “desert island” icebreaker. We asked, “If there was an epidemic and you could only bring three items with you into your quarantine tent, what would your items be? From Doritos to smartphones to a sharpie marker, teens excitedly answered while wondering how the question related to the art on view, or to anything at all.

After the introductions, Tan joined us to answer some of these questions and bring clarity to our icebreaker. To explore the idea of society's views on feminism and gender equality, Yi cultivates a female super bacteria that continues to grow in its exhibition case. When you first walk into the gallery, you are hit with a smell, but you don’t know where it comes from or what it is made of. Working with an MIT biologist, Yi took one hundred DNA samples of her female friends, including curators and artists. She then fused the samples with a scent that she and her assistant collected from the Gagosian Gallery with an odor-sucking device. Tan answered our many questions about whether this bacterial scent is contagious and what problems an exhibition like this posed. 

Throughout the tour, we asked questions, discussed some of these concepts as a group, and bid farewell to Tan before engaging in an art-making activity. Inspired by Yi’s work on view, each teen made his/her own “quarantine tent” in a clear plastic box.

By Nicholas, YI Leader