DOCK SQUARE
Juan Obando
Summer Sets, 2022
Reimagining our role in the construction of public space.
From July 19 - August 18, in front of the Samuel Adams statue in Dock Square, Colombian-born, New England-based artist Juan Obando asked us to reimagine our role in the construction of collective space with Summer Sets. Evoking new construction while confronting public space and history, Summer Sets represented a hyper-realistic, idealized rendering of Boston’s Dock Square mounted on scaffolding.
This monumental intervention provided a literal and figurative platform for visitors to add themselves, or alternative representations, to the memorial landscape and reenvision their roles in the construction and future of Boston's collective spaces.
UNFOLDING PROJECT #SUMMERSETSBOS
Without its familiar statue, this monumental intervention aimed to change the view that visitors expect, replacing it with a vacated cityscape. Acting as both reflector and projector, it created space for today’s citizens to reimagine and model alternatives for memorials and public spaces.
With the snap of a selfie, through a conversation with a local project Ambassador, or by participating in weekly events, we collectively interrogated, “How do we recognize and remember legacies? How do I fit into this imagined future? What is my role in the construction of public space?”
Years in the making, in part inspired by the summer of 2020 protests, Juan's intervention built on his work of critical intervention of social systems that employ screen-based installations to speculate new worlds, asking us all to reimagine together.
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LOCATION
Dock Square
DOCK SQUARE
Juan Obando
A local favorite.
Juan Obando is a Colombian artist working between Bogotá, Colombia, and Boston, MA, USA, currently residing in Phoenix, AZ, USA. He is an Associate Professor, Co-Coordinator of the Low Residency MFA Program at MassArt. He holds a BA in Design and Architecture from Universidad de Los Andes (Bogotá, Colombia) and an MFA in Electronic and Time-Based Media Art from Purdue University (West Lafayette, IN). His work focuses on the critical intervention of social systems and the subsequent production of video performances, post-digital objects, and screen-based installations — presenting the screen as a site where ideology confronts aesthetics and new worlds are speculated.
"I was into skateboarding with my friends growing up for nearly three years every weekend. I skated in this plaza where there was a statue of Gonzalo Jiménez de Quesada, a Spanish conqueror who is the 'founder' of Bogotá. Until last year, when this statue was knocked down by activists, I didn't even know who this was supposed to be. My eye level and my interest in this site — and the way we monumentalize it was through our action and interaction with it, how we could skate it better, and how we could make use of its design. A very physical process that was coming from us; experiencing that space from a completely different angle.” — Juan Obando, during a virtual N+T Asks panel with Goethe-Institut, Boston
Obando's work has been exhibited in Mexico, France, Colombia, Germany, and the US. Recent solo shows include “La Bodeguita de La Concordia” at Galería Santa Fé for the Luis Caballero National Art Prize (Bogotá, Colombia, 2021), "Pro Revolution" at Espacio Odeón (Bogotá, Colombia, 2019), "Full Collabs" at Distillery Gallery (Boston, 2018), "Jeep VIP" at Volta Art Fair (New York, 2017), and "Collabs" at MIAMI Prácticas Contemporáneas (Bogotá, 2017). Selected group exhibitions include Game Changers (MAAM, Boston, 2020), Video Sur (Palais de Tokyo, France, 2018), Rencontres de la Photographie (Arles, France, 2017), and MDE15 (Medellín, Colombia, 2015). He has been a resident artist at Casa Tres Patios (Medellín) in 2012 and at SOMA (Mexico City, Mexico) in 2017 and 2018. Obando was also awarded a Rhizome commission from The New Museum for the project “Museum Mixtape” in 2012, a MassArt Foundation grant in 2017 and an Art Matters fellowship in 2019.