On View: December 11-January 8
The Video Viewing Room series presents recent video works and archival recordings. This online initiative revives The Kitchen's longstanding Video Viewing Room—a dedicated space within our buildings from 1975 through the early 1990s.
Exploring and expanding on her ongoing investigation into the intersections of ecology, technology, and art, Patricia Domínguez’s feature length film TRES LUNAS MAS ABAJO (Three Moons Below) (2024) captures the scope of her artistic practice that ranges from ethnobotany and astronomy to ancestral knowledge and scientific innovation.
The artist produced Three Moons Below during her Simetría Residency that was split between two locations – CERN in Geneva and the European Southern Observatory (ESO) astronomy facilities in Chile: La Silla and the ALMA observatory (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO). Created with the goal to establish a cadence of interdisciplinary exchange between artists and scientists working or living in Switzerland and Chile, the Simetría Residency enabled Domínguez to produce her most ambitious project so far: an urgent yet playful invocation for a more that proposes a healing relationship between organic and mechanical entities. The film captures these locations as varying realms traversed by Domínguez’s protagonist and her animatronic bird as they encounter fantastical and natural environments populated by living, spiritual, and mechanical forms. Reflecting on the relationships between ritual, art, and science, Three Moons Below draws viewers into a space of discovery that ultimately advocates for a more enlightened and sustainable mode of existence between technological and natural worlds.
Exploring and expanding on her ongoing investigation into the intersections of ecology, technology, and art, Patricia Domínguez’s feature length film Three Moons Below (2024) captures the scope of her artistic practice that ranges from ethnobotany and astronomy to ancestral knowledge and scientific innovation. The artist produced Three Moons Below during her Simetría Residency that was split between two locations – CERN in Geneva and the European Southern Observatory (ESO) astronomy facilities in Chile: La Silla and the ALMA observatory (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO). Created with the goal to establish a cadence of interdisciplinary exchange between artists and scientists working or living in Switzerland and Chile, the Simetría Residency enabled Domínguez to produce her most ambitious project so far: an urgent yet playful invocation for a more that proposes a healing relationship between organic and mechanical entities. The film captures these locations as varying realms traversed by Domínguez’s protagonist and her animatronic bird as they encounter fantastical and natural environments populated by living, spiritual, and mechanical forms. Reflecting on the relationships between ritual, art, and science, Three Moons Below draws viewers into a space of discovery that ultimately advocates for a more enlightened and sustainable mode of existence between technological and natural worlds.
Patricia Domínguez: Three Moons Below (2024) is organized by Robyn Farrell, Senior Curator and Director of Curatorial Affairs.
About Patricia Domínguez
Patricia Domínguez was born in Santiago, Chile in 1984, and lives and works in Puchuncaví, Chile. Through a wide variety of media, Domínguez draws upon myths, symbols, rituals and healing practices, combining artistic imagination with experimental research on ethnobotany. Domínguez works with watercolors, ceramics, sculptural assemblages and video installations to create shrine-like imagery derived from a visual vocabulary that spans from plant life, mass market goods, corporate wellness schemes and the digital world. Her multilayered artistic approach is informed by the wide scope of her education and research; her MFA from Hunter College, New York is supplemented by a Botanical Illustration Program from the New York Botanical Garden, a residency at CERN to learn about quantum physics, non-locality and entanglement, and time spent in Peru learning from a plant healer and researching beliefs around interconnectivity and multi-species spirit in the plant world. Dominguez is also the founder of Studio Vegetalista, an experimental platform for ethnobotanical research based in Chile.
Funding Credits
Produced with the support of Fundación Botín, Arts at CERN, ESO Observatories, Pro Helvetia Southamerica, Corporación Chilena de Video, Ministerio de las Culturas, las Artes y el Patrimonio de Chile, and Cecilia Brunson Projects.
Video Viewing Room was initiated with the support of the NYC COVID-19 Response and Impact Fund in The New York Community Trust; annual grants from Lambent Foundation Fund of Tides Foundation and Howard Gilman Foundation; and in part by public funds from New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council and New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.
The Kitchen’s programs are made possible in part with support from The Kitchen’s Board of Directors, The Kitchen Global Council, Leadership Fund, and the Director’s Council, as well as through generous support from The Amphion Foundation, Inc., Bloomberg Philanthropies, The Aaron Copland Fund for Music, Cowles Charitable Trust, The James and Judith K. Dimon Foundation, Jerome Robbins Foundation, Ford Foundation, Howard Gilman Foundation, The Harkness Foundation for Dance, Marta Heflin Foundation, Lambent Foundation Fund, a fund of Tides Foundation, The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Mertz Gilmore Foundation, New Music USA, The Royal Norwegian Consulate General in New York, Ruth Foundation For The Arts, The Fan Fox and Leslie R. Samuels Foundation, Simons Foundation, and Teiger Foundation, Andy Warhol Foundation for the Arts; and in part by public funds from the Manhattan Borough President, the National Endowment for the Arts, New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council and New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.
The Kitchen acknowledges the generous support provided by the Collaborative Arts Network New York (CANNY). As a coalition of small to mid-sized multidisciplinary arts organizations, CANNY is committed to strengthening the infrastructure of arts nonprofits throughout New York. For more information about CANNY, please visit https://can-ny.org/.