Join us in celebration of the opening of Alana Ferguson’s solo exhibition, SLAPHAPPY.
What does it mean to be productive? Is a pregnant woman, who naps, has brain fog, and a small human inside her, considered productive? Is internal reflection which no clear agenda productive? When and how is visual craft productive?
The works in this exhibition purport to provide answers and purpose. The sculptures are posed as useful domestic appliances with visible mechanisms and moving parts, though they are practically useless and their effects – whether actual or potential – are absurd. The drawings are made on top of architectural plans for large warehouses, strip malls, and hotels, which I inherited from my father-in-law. The diagrammatic nature of the plans is a foundation for my own extemporized instructions, which obliquely explain how to use specific sculptures and states of mind. In tandem, the sculptures and drawings critique notions of productivity through absurdity. The pieces in this exhibition are part of a larger body of work, part of which has been recently exhibited at Patient Info Gallery in Chicago.
Raised in New York City, the child of architects who built private homes, Alana Ferguson grew up with a keen awareness of the ways design can convey class and status. Her work critiques the connections between visual aesthetic, class and notions of productivity with clumsiness and humor.
Alana Ferguson received a BFA from Washington University in St. Louis in 2012, an MAT from the Maryland Institute College of Art in 2016, and an MFA from University of Chicago in 2021. She has been an educator for over 10 years, with experience teaching art in K-12 public schools and university classrooms. She currently teaches at the College of DuPage and The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Alongside teaching and an interdisciplinary art practice, she has coordinated artist performances in her front yard, in a project called "The Lawn".