Walking Stick (St Marks Place, 2nd Avenue, East 9th Street, 1st Avenue)
Swiss Institute, New York, NY
May 10, 2023 – May 10, 2026

In May 2023, Swiss Institute launched Spora, a curatorial initiative centered in SI’s institutional imperative to integrate environmental consciousness and climate action into all facets of the institution. Like spores spreading throughout the physical structure of our building and permeating the immaterial processes of SI, Spora is an experiment that explores what a practice of environmental institutional critique could be.

Unfolding and growing over the course of two years, the artworks in the project are on long-term view in the non-gallery spaces of SI. Dionne Lee’s photographic installation continues her ongoing explorations of power, survival and personal history in relation to the American landscape. Distributed throughout SI’s stairwells, the silver gelatin prints document Lee's performative navigation of the urban landscape surrounding SI’s building. Lee’s traversal is aided by her use of a dowsing rod, made from a forked tree branch - a reference to a form of divination used to locate groundwater and other earth minerals. The artist retools the rod as an extension of her body, a “body antenna,” which guides her movement through space and helps reimagine her relationship to land. With the camera closely pointed towards the ground, these site-specific compositions manipulate light and shadow to move seamlessly between abstraction and figuration while also serving as ecological and phenomenological re-orientation devices for SI’s visitors. 

The project is organized by Stefanie Hessler, Director, Alison Coplan, Chief Curator, and KJ Abudu, Assistant Curator.