{"id":101967,"date":"2026-03-02T20:25:07","date_gmt":"2026-03-03T03:25:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/?p=101967"},"modified":"2026-03-03T20:38:59","modified_gmt":"2026-03-04T03:38:59","slug":"the-unfinished-project-of-reclamation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/the-unfinished-project-of-reclamation\/","title":{"rendered":"The Unfinished Project of Reclamation"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Installation view of Reclamation at Ogden Contemporary Arts, featuring Lani Asunci\u00f3n\u2019s Duty-Free Paradise (2020\u20132026), which combines photographic vinyl panels, neon text, and a floor installation referencing Queen Lili\u02bbuokalani\u2019s words.<\/p><\/div>\n

At a moment when American political rhetoric once again toys with territorial ambition and \u201cfriendly takeovers,\u201d Ogden Contemporary Arts presents an exhibition that reminds viewers that the last age of U.S. imperial expansion never truly ended. In Reclamation<\/em> at Ogden Contemporary Arts, three Filipine artists explore the legacy of U.S. expansion of colonialism overseas at the turn of the 20th century. Following the Spanish-American War in 1898, the U.S. acquired Guam, the Philippines, and Puerto Rico and established a protectorate over Cuba. The subsequent Philippine-American War (1899\u20131902) ushered in another 44 years of American imperial presence in the Philippines\u2014a history whose consequences continue to shape diaspora, labor systems, and land use across the Pacific and, as the exhibition reveals, even here in Utah.<\/h4>\n

These artists\u2019 stories, not typically taught in American history classes, depict how the last hundred-plus years find purchase in today\u2019s reality\u2014a reality of communities who still experience intergenerational trauma, who see the results of exploitation on their own ancestors and families as well as the land. The artists\u2019 works open us up to new insights and broaden the scope of our understanding of the costs of global power. With a focus on the global diaspora of Filipino people and culture in the wake of the Philippine-American War, artists Lani Asunci\u00f3n, Camille Hoffman, and Kill Joy also present the impact of the era\u2019s systems of extractive labor, U.S. militarism, and tourism and the exploitative impact these have had on communities. This impact was felt simultaneously in Hawai\u2019i, where the illegal U.S. overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom in 1893 led to a labor linkage between the Philippines and the sugar plantations of Hawai\u2019i.<\/h4>\n

The exhibition opens with the work of Boston artist Lani Asunci\u00f3n. Their multi-media \u201cDuty-Free Paradise,\u201d 2020-2026, incorporates vinyl photographic images, neon, and framed photos by Richard Misrach and Karl Struss borrowed from the Utah Museum of Fine Arts. Posing questions about tourism and the ongoing colonialism in Hawai\u2019i, where the artist grew up, Asunci\u00f3n presents a clearly defined statement that is both deftly installed and visually engaging. Nearby, Asunci\u00f3n includes a floor piece titled \u201cBLOODLESS: BLOOD, BONES, ALOHA!\u201d The title words sit upon a mix of sand and dirt and reference the words of deposed Queen Lili\u2019uokalani as she was imprisoned in the Iolani Palace after being overthrown by a Euro-American coup. She wrote \u201cMy love for my homeland and my beloved people, the bones of my bones, the blood of my blood! Aloha! Aloha! Aloha!\u201d The presentation of these words in soil on the floor grounds these words while also forcing the viewer to take care stepping around them as they walk through the gallery.<\/h4>\n
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A three-channel video installation by Lani Asunci\u00f3n fills a gallery wall with vivid green light, including imagery of a boxer wearing gloves\u2014a reference to the cultural history of boxing in Hawai\u02bbi.<\/p><\/div>\n

In looped 3-channel videos \u201cIosepa: Skull Valley (1889\u20131917)\u201d and \u201cFair Use Hawai\u2018i,\u201dAsunci\u00f3n envelops the viewer with overhead shots of the islands\u2019 spectacular landscapes alongside images of the K\u0101naka Maoli memorial in Iosepa, Utah\u2014the remote settlement in Utah’s west desert founded in 1889 by Native Hawaiian converts to the LDS Church\u2014and the LDS temple later built in L\u0101\u2018ie after many of Iosepa’s residents returned home. The artist also appears donning hand wraps and boxing gloves, referencing the role boxing has played in Hawai\u2018i over the last century. All the images they use counter historic legacy with cultural practice, violence with beauty, and perception with reality.<\/h4>\n

The final piece in Asunci\u00f3n\u2019s presentation is \u201cSettlers of the Pacific,\u201d a large floor piece complete with golf green and hexagonal game table, where play pieces from the popular Catan series have been customized with elements of Hawai\u2019i\u2019s land and cities. Overhead, blue camouflage pieces are a reminder of water, military, and fishing nets. The piece\u2019s playfulness belies its critique of the commodification of the islands. It\u2019s also beautifully crafted, reinforcing the artist\u2019s vision by drawing the eye into the world they\u2019ve created, then questioning what the effects of consumerism, militarism, and tourism have had on that world.<\/h4>\n
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Lani Asunci\u00f3n, Settlers of the Pacific, installation view. A customized game table referencing the board game Catan sits atop a golf-green-like surface, critiquing the commodification of land, tourism, and militarization in Hawai\u02bbi.<\/p><\/div>\n

<\/h4>\n
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Wall installation by Camille Hoffman, created in collaboration with Andre Taylor, overlays hand-painted imagery and salt-based watercolor onto a reproduction of William Henry Jackson\u2019s The Salt Lake Valley, connecting geological history and Pacific migration.<\/p><\/div>\n

The east wall of the space holds NYC-based artist Camille Hoffman\u2019s large-scale installation, created in collaboration with Andre Taylor. Using a vinyl reproduction of William Henry Jackson\u2019s mid-19th-century painting \u201cThe Salt Lake Valley,\u201d Hoffman has spliced the reproduction of the painting with hand-painted watercolor imagery she created using salt sourced from Utah, the Philippines, and Mexico. The salt from those locations all originated in the Pacific Ocean and the images of Hoffman\u2019s hands moving the salt through water reference the movement of that ocean into Emigration Canyon millions of years ago. The work\u2019s materials give it visual power and the vinyl dripping down from the wall onto the floor emphasizes the fluidity of the stories and their depictions.<\/h4>\n

In the upstairs gallery, Texas artist Kill Joy’s prints from 2020-2025 line the hallway walls, their imagery and colors boosting the political power of the text. The compositions balance bold graphic clarity with finely honed illustration, channeling solidarity into direct visual language that confronts the human and environmental costs of injustice. At the end of the hallway, the title panel for the artist’s \u201cFire in the Womb\u201d installation is an explosion of hand-painted cardboard and brown butcher paper that reflects the materials of puppet makers. Created in collaboration with Zane Wilcox, the piece opens with the artist\u2019s words\u2014\u201cevery large fire begins with many small fires.\u201d The large fire created in the space is an earth womb of an ancestral mother figure from Filipino folklore. On the opposite wall are placards created in collaboration with community members in the practice of community healing. The entire installation is vibrant and the fires they reference seem to crackle even though there is no sound element. Visitors are invited to create their own contributions at a work table placed along the stairwell.<\/h4>\n

The variety of materials used by the artists in Reclamation\u2014<\/em>salt, soil, vinyl, cardboard, neon\u2014<\/em>engage and delight. Their words open up new stories we likely did not know. Their skills bolster their messages. Though it is difficult to fully understand and appreciate the exhibition without reading the descriptive labels, there is a lot to take in from this small group exhibition. Its physical presence alone conveys how distant imperial ventures reverberate locally. The works seem much bigger than the square footage they take up, and as the artists trace lines from Hawai\u2018i and the Philippines to Utah\u2019s deserts and valleys, we see how intervention abroad reshapes communities at home with reciprocal currents of migration, labor, and empire. The impetus to find the new is just as powerful as the drive to return to the familiar.<\/h4>\n
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Prints by Kill Joy line the upstairs gallery at Ogden Contemporary Arts, combining bold graphic imagery and text to address militarization, environmental exploitation, and Indigenous sovereignty.<\/p><\/div>\n

Reclamation<\/em>, Ogden Contemporary Arts<\/a>, Ogden, through May 3<\/p>\n

All images courtesy of the author.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

At a moment when American political rhetoric once again toys with territorial ambition and \u201cfriendly takeovers,\u201d Ogden Contemporary Arts presents an exhibition that reminds viewers that the last age of U.S. imperial expansion never truly ended. In Reclamation at Ogden Contemporary Arts, three Filipine artists explore the legacy […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1736,"featured_media":101981,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_piecal_is_event":false,"_piecal_start_date":"","_piecal_end_date":"","_piecal_is_allday":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,14],"tags":[4143],"class_list":["post-101967","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-exhibition_reviews","category-visual_arts","tag-ogden-contemporary-arts"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/IMG_0812-scaled.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-07 14:24:19","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101967","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1736"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=101967"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101967\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":101984,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101967\/revisions\/101984"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/101981"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=101967"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=101967"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=101967"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}