Gala Porras-Kim, Visiting Artist Lecture 2024

Artist Gala Porras-Kim gives a lecture at Skowhegan. Porras-Kim begins by talking about her relationship to architecture and scale, and how these frameworks influence her drawing practice. Porras-Kim then talks about objects, specifically objects and archives that belong in museum collections, the ongoing functions of these objects in museum spaces, and how she approaches this from the institutional perspective. Porras-Kim continues her lecture by talking about her practice of writing letters to museums and archeological institutes to reconsider the way in which they make conservation and restoration decisions. Porras-Kim is specifically interested in historical objects within institutions, how their original functions are still ongoing, and finding ways to assure that an object’s current life within an institution doesn’t overshadow what the original intention is meant to be.

At the core of Porras-Kim’s interest in institutions are ideas around museum conservation, institutional critique, and how to generate a collecting practice. Porras-Kim approaches this collecting practice by also thinking about how to approach the individual histories of historical objects that are flattened and how to account for infinite other versions of museum objects in a museum. Porras-Kim looks at this from the audience perspective and works backwards. Porras-Kim then goes on to speak about her interest in the form of the triptych, and how this informs her interest in sound as well. Porras-Kim often uses constructed sound from geographical environments as well as sound constructed by the artist herself for her work. Porras-Kim ends her lecture by asking the following question: How can one account for infinite other versions of museum objects in a museum?