Carol Emmons: Cosmogyny 2.0

Cosmogyny means "the begetting of the universe" and Carol Emmons' exhibit "reimagines the origins of the cosmos - albeit as the product of a somewhat maladroit tinkerer's workshop." I had to look up what maladroit meant and it basically means clumsy. And I definitely got that sense from her exhibit. It was organized chaos. Emmons and her exhibit embraces varied creation stores and systems of knowledge. She makes the point that we come from everywhere and nowhere. Her exhibit is about finding grace and insight in the lowly tinkerer's handiwork, and I think that was definitely accomplished.

Upon walking into the exhibit, It definitely seemed to be a universe made up of objects found in a "tinkerer's workshop." There was everything from shiny spherical balls, old clocks, tools, broken parts of machinery, old tickets, dice, and the walls were covered in shiny balls resembling stars and plaques where an astrological sign was written. The exhibit was definitely a collaborative experience between the artist and the viewer.

Emmons' aim of the exhibit was to ensure that low aspects of popular culture are given serious consideration as a part of the spectrum of human experience. I, however, did not understand her exhibit in that way. It did not cause me to consider the objects in the exhibit more seriously, it was more of just an experience. It was like a universe on earth due to it being made up of all of these human-made objects. It also seemed, in my opinion, to comment on the reality of time. Each of the four tiny baby carriages (or maybe they were wagons?) had numbers on them in ascending order with different objects in them.

Ten - dice, tickets, games

Twelve - shiny balls

Nineteen - hardware, metal, tools, machinery

Fifty - clocks

I was trying to make sense of these wagons and why they were ordered in this way, why they had the specific numbers of them, and why she chose to put each specific object in the certain wagon. It seemed to me to be a commentary on time and life. That at age ten, we are more considered with games and having fun. Then at age twelves, we are more interested in.... shiny objects?? (I'm still trying to figure that one out). And at age nineteen, we are becoming more knowledge and aware of how things work, hence the tools and machinery. And then finally at age fifty, we are becoming more aware of time.... the time that has passed and the little time that is left in one's life.

Even if that may not have been the aim of Emmons' work, it surely resonated with me and caused me to think more about the spectrum of life and human experience.

P.S. - I would include photos but there are no photos of the work in this particular exhibit anywhere online.