People have long imagined fictional societies and ideal worlds more perfect than their own in which people live in harmony and are free from conflicts. In writing of his ideal alternate world, Sir Thomas More used the term "utopia," derived from the Greek and meaning literally, "no place," suggesting that such a model society cannot exist.
It is this idea of a perfect society that inspired the exhibition "Saya Woolfalk: Institute for the Analysis of Empathy" currently in the Koppelman Gallery at the Tufts University Art Gallery. Working with a variety of media including film, installation, drawings and paintings, Woolfalk conceives a fictional world through which she examines what it means to live in harmonious existence.
Upon entering Woolfalk's candy−colored world, one will immediately be transported to her dreamlike imaginary universe. Transformed with bright hues and captivating installations and objects, the gallery space beckons visitors to wander through the room and absorb all that Woolfalk has to offer. The exhibition is a fictional research site for Woolfalk's study of a species she calls the Empathics. This group, she claims, is connected to a future utopian world that she calls No Place, and these Empathics are a unique chimerical species of both plant and animal material. Drawing from her exploration of this group, Woolfalk learns about the self and its relation to the surrounding environment and how such awareness ultimately leads to a harmonious existence.
The first part of the exhibition is a 30−minute film, titled "Ethnography of No Place," which employs the anthropological research tool of ethnographic study, or the systematic study of a culture. A tour de force of animation and design, the film presents viewers with a vibrant dreamscape teeming with youthful symbols, scores of patterns and other designs. Though a bit long and dragging at times, the film succeeds at drawing viewers into its trance−like folkloric narrative, which Woolfalk narrates with the accompaniment of soothing sounds that create a sense of peacefulness.
After watching the film, viewers enter the main gallery space, which provides a highly multi−sensorial experience with its many colors and objects. Further developing the idea that the exhibition space is a research site for the study of the Empathics, the works in the gallery, much like the ethnographic film, have an almost scientific quality of investigation. One drawing, "No Placean Anatomy" (2008), recalls a segment of the film in which Woolfalk discusses the physical anatomy of the No Placeans.
Sculptures are used to represent models of the No Placean Self. In the center of the room is a large sculpture with the skeleton that Woolfalk found at an upstate New York burial site. Through these various works, the viewer gains an understanding of these No Placeans as a culture, as if they were just another contemporary cultural group. In imagining the world this group inhabits and being presented with a comprehensive study of the bodies, actions and landscape of No Place, viewers are totally immersed in this fictional world.
At the end of the exhibition is what Woolfalk calls the "Empathetic Dream Box," which is a video installation where viewers are welcomed into an enclosed space to sit and listen to Woolfalk speak about her study of the Empathics. Sitting in this Dream Box, the viewer is wholly connected to No Place and its people. The viewer becomes a part of this alternate dream world and is able to understand its logic.
Woolfalk's "Institute for the Analysis of Empathy" is a fascinating and thought−provoking exhibition. The exhibition, despite its wild Technicolor space, is not overwhelming and allows viewers to be completely absorbed into the space. In constructing this fictional, playful world, Woolfalk is able to tackle vital questions that ultimately relate to the human experience, our understanding of the self and how we grapple to connect the self to our surroundings and fellow beings. Woolfalk places significant weight on using observation and reasoning to understand our existence and the truths of our society.
