Projects

Orchis

ORCHIS (2024)

ORCHIS examines orchid flowers and their relationship to gender, queerness, politics, and desire. Wildly diverse, gender-bending, and found in nearly every habitat on Earth, ORCHIS looks at natural and cultural histories of the orchid as queer-coded, while also wielded as symbols of military and economic power. 

An aerial view of video projection on the face of a building against a purple hazy sky and the downtown Los Angeles skyline. Video image of the pages of a book containing yellow and orange orchid flowers reflected and multiplied across the screen
An aerial view of video projection on the face of a building against a purple hazy sky and the downtown Los Angeles skyline. Video image of the pages of a book containing yellow and red orchid flowers reflected and multiplied across the screen

Screen Lovers

A monumental video projection onto a windowless wall of a five story building with downtown Los Angeles skyline in the background. The video shows an extreme closeup of a human eye filmed through a vibrant colorful array of screen reflections, it is ambiguous whether the eye is emanating light or receiving light.

SCREEN LOVERS

4k color video with sound, 2022

Through a series of extreme close-ups, Screen Lovers (2022) examines the way we modulate ourselves between onscreen and offscreen realities—as attention, intimacy, and surveillance operate across digital and physical space. Tracking the gaze, Screen Lovers (2022) attempts to discern forms of shelter, thought, and fluid time that are produced via screens and projection. Screen Lovers (2022) questions how we might participate in these hybrid encounters, authoring greater agency for ourselves– navigating welcome and unwelcome forms of visibility, and fissures between identity, technology, and the body.

A monumental video projection onto a windowless wall of a five story building with downtown Los Angeles skyline in the background. The video shows an extreme closeup of a human eye filmed through a vibrant colorful array of screen reflections, it is ambiguous whether the eye is emanating light or receiving light.
A monumental video projection onto a windowless wall of a five story building with downtown Los Angeles skyline in the background. The video shows an extreme closeup of a human eye filmed through a vibrant colorful array of screen reflections, it is ambiguous whether the eye is emanating light or receiving light.
A monumental video projection onto a windowless wall of a five story building with downtown Los Angeles skyline in the background. The video shows an extreme closeup of a human eye filmed through a vibrant colorful array of screen reflections, it is ambiguous whether the eye is emanating light or receiving light.
A monumental video projection onto a windowless wall of a five story building with downtown Los Angeles skyline in the background. The video shows an extreme closeup of a human eye filmed through a vibrant colorful array of screen reflections, it is ambiguous whether the eye is emanating light or receiving light.
A monumental video projection onto a windowless wall of a five story building with downtown Los Angeles skyline in the background. The video shows an extreme closeup of a human eye filmed through a vibrant colorful array of screen reflections, it is ambiguous whether the eye is emanating light or receiving light.

luminex

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Sarah Rara’s multi-disciplinary practice— including video, sound, performance, and writing— explores the position of witness within fragile systems. Their work in sound and moving image considers gender, queerness, technology, disability, and illness, in connection with environmental research. Regarding the environment as relational and invested with notions of identity, Sarah Rara’s work considers the socio-political and personal dimensions of sensing technologies. They are a primary organizer of the ongoing project lucky dragons. Their work, solo and in collaboration, has been presented at such institutions as the Whitney Museum of American Art (as part of the 2008 Whitney Biennial), the Hammer Museum, the Centre Georges Pompidou, Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, London’s Institute for Contemporary Art, PS1 in New York, REDCAT and Human Resources in Los Angeles, MOCA Los Angeles, the 54th Venice Biennale, Documenta 14 in Athens, and the Smithsonian’s Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, among others. Rara is a 2018 recipient of the LACMA Art + Technology fellowship and current artist-in-residence at Bangkok 1899, Bangkok, Thailand. Rara is Assistant Professor of Moving Image at Williams College.

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