UNCERTAIN CERTAINTY

a site specific exhibition of recent work by Miya Hannan

November December 2022

The first guerilla-style pop-up for Melhop Projects is for Miya Hannan, with a show titled Uncertain Certainty, at the opium den in the old Chinese Herb shop, now the studio of HSH Interiors, in Truckee, California. The opium den is an intimate tiny space with a deep history.

Hannan’s work activates this space.

MIYA HANNAN

SHORT BIO

Miya Hannan’s sculptures, installations, and drawings show her view of the world that is constructed by the layers and linkages of human lives and histories. Her practice is influenced by Asian death philosophy and rituals, and minor histories that have been almost forgotten. Hannan has been actively showing her work in many solo exhibitions in the United States. She also had numerous group exhibitions nationally and internationally. Women's Essence exhibitions invited her to attend their shows in Venice, Italy, 2019, (a concomitant event with the Official Pavilion of Bangladesh 58th Venice Biennale), as well as Rome, Italy, 2021, (which was recognized by UNESCO as a gender equality project), and again in 2022 in Paris, France. Her artist’s book, a collaboration project with Brighton Press in San Diego in 2017, is now in the collections of many institutions including the Getty Research Institute, Library of Congress, and Stanford University. She received the Nevada Art Council Jackpot Grant and the Sierra Arts Foundation Artist Grant in 2018. She was awarded many artist residencies, including the Jentel Artist Residency, Banner, WY in 2022, Willapa Bay AiR Residency, Oysterville, WA in 2018, and the Red Gate Residency in Beijing, China in 2017. In 2012, she was commissioned by TEDxSan Diego to create an installation for their meeting. She also received the 2013 Distinguished Alumni Award from Mesa College, San Diego.

 Hannan was awarded an M.F.A. Fellowship from San Francisco Art Institute where she received her M.F.A. in 2007. Before coming to the United States, she received a bachelor’s degree in medical technology from the school of health sciences, Kyushu University and worked for a hospital for seven years in her native country, Japan. She is an associate professor at the University of Nevada, Reno and serves as the Director of the MFA Program and the Head of the Drawing Area.

ARTIST STATEMENT

I view the world as one comprised of layers and linkages of history, a chain of lives and events that leads from one to the next. Landscape is the record of these histories. Using physical soil and the image of nature as triggers for narratives and identities of people, my installations, sculptures, and drawings try to preserve stories that are almost forgotten or, that would otherwise be lost. Letting landscape speak about various difficult issues around us is my way of questioning people without imposing my perspective on them. In Japan, where I grew up, the souls of the dead live on, spirits exist within nature, and land retains its destiny—people inherit the histories of the land on which they live. I am interested in the relationship between humanity and the information trapped in nature.

 EXHIBITION STATEMENT

Each work of the “Uncertain Certainty” series is a set - a drawing and a sculpture. I found old chairs from the Reno area and sanded them down to create skeletal structures to the point that they barely stand. The chair acts as a stand in for a human portrait and the memory of being. For each chair, I made a drawing to portray the missing parts of the chair. The drawing is done with soot from a burning candle on paper suspended from the ceiling. Burning, which appears in many Japanese rituals including cremation, changes physical forms to the transient. The Law of Conservation of Mass states that mass may change forms but can neither be created nor destroyed. Similarly, the dead stay with the living in the form of memory, story, knowledge, and genetic code. Every dead person exists around us in some way, creating layers of rich histories that enhance our lives. The physical ephemerality of the soot depicts my view of death as another form of being alive.

Poem in response to Uncertain Certainty

by Jared Stanley

Jared Stanley is a poet and writer who often collaborates with visual artists. He lives in Reno.

You can find more of Jared’s work on his website here or on instagram @jared_stanley_studio

MIYA HANNAN Uncertain Certainty ARTIST TALK

11 November 2022

A huge thanks to designer and owner of HSH Interiors, Holly Snow Hollenbeck, for her implicit belief in the Arts and for allowing us to install and exhibit this show and celebrate Hannan’s intense, fragile and thought provoking work.

Hannan's work of late has been focused on Asian histories in the Reno, Nevada area that are almost forgotten. Her work uncovers the history and memory associated with Asian immigrants who were involved with railroad work and mining during the Comstock gold and silver rushes.