boundary presents a solo show by Hope Wang, May 14-June 11, 2022.

Opening reception May 14, 6-9pm.

“Before there was a hill, there was a hole,” is a quote from an article about the Henry Palmisano park in Chicago’s Bridgeport neighbourhood. The article traces its history as a limestone quarry, where after 130 years of mining, the huge hole extended 380 feet below street level. From “trash to treasure,” the hole became a landfill for construction waste, before the dumping finally ended and this space began its new life as a fishing hole and beautiful wetland prairie park. It is one of Wang’s favourite places in the city, and she thinks fondly about the digging/filling/overflow/reuse of that space. Peripheral details and imperceptible histories about our built environment hold meaning and narrative. Within her own work, Wang considers the ways architectural spaces become artifacts of memory, and what happens to our memories when the physical artifacts disappear or change. Through manipulation of material surfaces and perception, her work suggests that meaning and memory are often in flux, and thus, often written over and over again.

Wang often references her photographs documenting sloppy traces of human activity around sites of urban industrial labour: boundary-making traffic objects as surrogate bodies, screenshots of Google Maps parking lots, and golden-hour light casting shadows against buildings and sidewalks. In her studio, Wang also practices digging and dumping material such as screenshots, grocery lists, poems, sketches, colour swatches; reiterating ideas spanning across years as content for her artwork. before there was a hill, there was a hole presents an interior look at the errant thoughts and preliminary lives of these scraps before they become “finished” objects. 

boundary is a contemporary visual arts project space founded in June, 2017 and located in a converted garage in Morgan Park on the south side of Chicago. The mission as a project space is to provide opportunities for Chicago-based, national and international artists to exhibit works in progress as well completed bodies of work. To schedule an appointment, please contact Susannah Papish, Director at 773/316-0562 or email boundarychicago@gmail.com.