Nine Lives: digital catalog

The exhibition Nine Lives delves into how stories are told, where they can be found, and what their lasting effects might be, both within a person’s life and on a much larger scale. In the newly commissioned and recently made artworks on view, a variety of individuals come forward, like protagonists in a collection or short stories or personal essays, quietly occupying everyday settings or navigating more extraordinary circumstances. As the artists dig through archives, make images over time, or explore the lifespan of different well-known tales, the exhibition also explores how traces of the past are interpreted or understood, and how history can be re-examined or rewritten.

This digital publication features extensive images of the exhibition as well as short texts by each of the artists, in which they reflect on their works and different aspects of storytelling, narrative, history, or translation. Five other texts in the publication span a range of writerly forms, including an essay by the curators, Karsten Lund and Caroline Picard, a new short story by Azareen Van der Vliet Oloomi, and a trio of short pieces by writer Maisie Mattia, chosen by the author to accompany photographs by Elle Pérez.