Artist Credit: Calibration, Alex Branch and PlatteForum’s ArtLab Interns, wood crutches and tambourine zills, 2018Image by Wes Magyar — Artist Credit: *Calibration,* Alex Branch and PlatteForum’s ArtLab Interns, wood crutches and tambourine zills, 2018
Image by Wes Magyar

Residency dates: October 29 - December 13, 2018

Reception: Thursday, December 13th

Exhibition dates - December 13 - January 26th, 2019

While in residence at PlatteForum, Resident Artist Alex Branch has been working with PlatteForum’s own high school ArtLab interns to create an ensemble of sound sculptures. Looking to create a link between the crutch as a medical device and musical instruments as tools for rehabilitation, the title Calibration references the ability to tune a body as well as a musical instrument.

During this time together in the studio, Alex Branch and interns discussed the philosophies of music therapy, and how it's been used throughout history as a rehabilitation modality. To that end, Branch and the ArtLab interns will perform from these items – most notably, used aluminum crutches and other found medical supplies. In addition to her time with the high school interns, Alex Branch has created a series of new sculptural works which explore the delicate and fraught relationship that one can have to their own journey of healing. Many of the sculptures employ humor, impossible modifications, or fantastical contexts, which underscore the frailty and, in some cases, ineffectiveness of recovering from trauma.

About Alex Branch

Branch is a multidisciplinary artist living in Brooklyn, New York. Her practice is made up of objects, time based pieces, collected sounds, musical architecture, and attempted collaborations with the natural world. Her work has been exhibited in Seattle, Chicago, New Mexico, New York, Texas, Montreal and Wisconsin. She creates architectural musical sculptures from salvaged materials that dually function as gathering spaces for the communities in which they are built. The spaces she creates often serve as conduits for artists, writers and musicians to experiment with new work and foster collaboration..

Our Resident Artist program is generously supported by OZ Architecture