ALL Prize Exhibits

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courtesy ALL

A work by Esther Cho from the poster for the exhibit "In Touch," at Arts + Literature Laboratory.

media release: In Touch by 2022 ALL Prize recipient Esther Cho; and The Invisible Third, an installation by 2022 ALL Prize recipient ZIP ZAP Press, are on display at the Arts + Literature Laboratory April 14 through May 13, 2022. There will be an artists reception during Gallery Night on Friday, May 6, 2022 from 5-9pm with artists talks beginning at 6pm.

Gallery hours are Tuesday-Friday 10am-5pm and Saturday 12-5pm (free). The gallery will be closed on Saturday, April 16. Please check our current COVID-19 safety guidelines before your visit.

Artist Statements

In Touch is an exploration of the idiom “to be in touch with (someone or something)” by weaving together autobiographical experiences and broader cultural narratives that engage questions of gender, race, and socioeconomics. With drawing, installation, and sculptural objects Cho’s intention is for viewers to be reminded of our shared humanity. These works express healing through communication and connection. 

In the ongoing project Light and Loud, Cho records her experience and the emotional toll of not being heard - from feeling embarrassed or frustrated to unimportance and even ignored. This project is a compilation of words and sentences she repeated in conversations due to not being heard the first time, which she then archived and wrote in paper pulp. Each re-writing becomes a collection of pages that form a large-scale, interactive book. When dried, the text is no longer legible; however, the words are brought back as an audio track of the artist’s voice whispering the words she had once repeated– demanding the viewer to actively listen to the words again. The work tests the boundaries of what constitutes a book.

The 168 drawings on display in The Hair Drawing Project were created during an eight-month period in which Cho drew from her shower walls during the pandemic lockdown using only water and her hair. She insisted on the daily act of art-making at a time when health and society were pushed to the highest level of insanity with no insight into what to do but hope that within ourselves, we could find the peace of mind to get through it. The images that comprise this installation represent and capture specific moments in time and explore questions that arise as the artist investigates the necessity of routine, resilience, and nostalgia during a time of isolation and absence of physical connection.

Esther Cho is a Korean-American interdisciplinary artist, designer, and papermaker based in Madison, WI. Her research-based studio practice focuses on devising narrative installations for archiving the history and retelling the stories of Asian-Americans, children of immigrants, and Asian diasporas to consider the experience of identity, gender, loss of lineage, and cultural disconnect. She holds a BFA in both Craft & Material Studies and Interior Design from Virginia Commonwealth University. In 2017, she received the Windgate-Lamar Fellowship from the Center of Crafts to travel to South Korea to study the process of making hanji (Korean paper) and its related craft forms. She is currently the Student Representative on the Board of Trustees for The Furniture Society and is attending the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where she is pursuing her Master of Fine Arts.

ZIP ZAP Press presents: The Invisible Third

Cakes! Comics! Feelings! You're invited to a party about grief and joy; generational trauma and play; cycles of violence and visual generosity. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, maybe you’ll do both at once. The invisible third is a way to describe when two things have a sum greater than their parts. When you combine a book and a reader, something alive appears- suspended in between the two. You are invited to conjure this invisible guest by reading a comic or two and having a piece of cake.

Zip Zap is a queer fairy scientist shapeshifter who draws comics at night and doesn’t live in Texas. They lurk in the space where funny and sad meet, looking for a place to sit with a friend and have a snack.