Hannah Spector

The desert is not a void, as it is so often depicted–it is an active landscape with vibrational subtleties that reward deep listening and looking. For half a decade, Hannah Spector has been travelling to West Texas multiple times a year to listen to this landscape. Their exhibition at Women & Their Work, if you stare at a cowboy’s face for long enough, it turns into a sunset, places queer bodies within a new mythos–one that turns against the hyperreal object of the American West as an imperial proving ground.

Featuring a multichannel sound and video installation with ceramic sculpture and copper-plate etchings, Spector projects a new future–one that disrupts gender norms, power systems within language, linear notions of time, and limiting means of self-expression.

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Si miras fijamente el rostro de un vaquero por suficiente tiempo, se convierte en un atardecer

El desierto no es un vacío, como tan a menudo se le representa; es un paisaje activo, con sutilezas vibratorias que recompensan escuchar y observar profundamente. Durante cinco años, Hannah Spector ha viajado varias veces al año al oeste de Texas para escuchar este paisaje. Su exposición en Women & Their Work, Si miras fijamente el rostro de un vaquero por suficiente tiempo, se convierte en un atardecer, sitúa cuerpos queer dentro de un nuevo mito—uno que se rebela al objeto hiperreal del Oeste americano como terreno de prueba del imperialismo. Con una instalación multicanal de sonido y video, acompañada de esculturas de cerámica y grabados en planchas de cobre, Spector proyecta un nuevo futuro—uno que rompe con las normas de género, los sistemas de poder dentro del lenguaje, las nociones lineales del tiempo y los medios limitados de autoexpresión.

About the Artist

Hannah Spector is an interdisciplinary artist and poet working out of Austin, Texas. Spector thinks of language as a solid object—a concrete and spatial expression that can overturn limiting perceptions of the everyday.

Spector has completed residencies at Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, Stoveworks, The Museum of Human Achievement, and Pyramid Atlantic. Spector’s short films have won prizes at Dumbo Film Festival, Berlin Short Film Festival, and Bodega Film Festival. They are an Assistant Professor of Practice of Time & Technology at UT Austin. Spector is a community organizer and curates the deep listening project, MASS Ambient. They serve as a member of MASS Gallery and are a co-curator of shedshows.

Riso chapbook, audio cassette and bumper stickers available for purchase. A percentage of the proceeds go to the Transgender Education Network of Texas. Purchase through the link below.

Digital recording of the audio for this exhibition is available through Bandcamp.