SoHo, New York
Hyeree Ro
Niro
Canal ProjectsNiro is a newly commissioned installation by Hyeree Ro that explores themes of loss, mobility, invisibility, and intimacy. The installation centers around a skeletal sculpture of a Kia Niro, the car driven by the artist’s late father. Niro activates this framework as an allusion to boundaries between father and daughter, and moments that are physically and metaphorically shared and spent apart in relation to the bounds of the vehicle. The scaffold-like car structure, constructed from thin wood strips and aluminum, blurs boundaries between interior and exterior, presenting the car as a site that is both public and private. Viewers are invited to enter the sculpture to experience an audio recording of a fourteen-hour road trip to Niagara Falls taken by the artist earlier in the summer. A new video work centered on bodies of water features a soundscape composed of interviews Ro conducted with friends, where they shared their experiences of crossing the Pacific Ocean. Compiled together and played simultaneously, the installation’s audiovisual components flow as a stream of consciousness that carries the viewer amidst Ro’s gathered memories and reflections. Ro activates the Niro sculpture through movement and a fragmented multilingual monologue. Engaging the sculpture while repeating words, gestures, and sounds, the performance deconstructs and reconstruct both the physical vehicle and the artist’s relationship with her father, carrying the viewer within a meandering stream of memory that shifts and flows as the artist moves and reorders the sculpture and other objects in the space. Special thanks to The Jenni Crain Foundation for additional exhibition support. Hyeree Ro would like to thank her friends—Rebecca Yeong Ae Mzengi Corey, Lulu Yao Gioiello, Sae Jun Kim, Christina Yuna Ko, Annie Ling, Anne Wu, Lucas Yasunaga—for their trust and for sharing their stories; Maya Hayda, Caroline Shehan, Andrew Lee, and the install crew—Matthew, Corbin, Tin, Geetha, Jenny, and Gus—for their care and support; and a special thanks to Armando Cortés for his invaluable support on this project.