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“I feel that this experience for me has been about how to learn how to experiment again. Because I think we all do that – if you hit a stride in anything in life, everyone wants you to continue that.” — Samara Golden

One of the most extraordinary and memorable works from the 2017 Whitney Biennial was the installation The Meat Grinder’s Iron Clothes by Samara Golden. Recently, Golden participated in the artist-in-residence program at the legendary Fabric Workshop and Museum in Philadelphia. The residency was to culminate in a solo exhibition at the FWM, opening on April 3, 2020. With the exhibition postponed and the opening cancelled by the pandemic, Golden and FWM Curator Karen Patterson spoke over Zoom for a conversation about Golden’s work and the installation at the museum. Now that the exhibition has finally opened (with limitations) we wanted to share the conversation from April. Samara Golden’s installation Upstairs at Steve’s runs at the Fabric Workshop and Museum from September 10, 2020 through January 31, 2021.

From The Fabric Workshop and Museum:

At once infinite and ephemeral, Golden’s immersive structures have been described as psychological architecture for the way they thoughtfully embed layers of consciousness within socio-economic stratification. Upstairs at Steve’s depicts a complete upending of an outdoor tableau, set in a seaside landscape. The exhibition reveals a mysterious confluence of biography, history, psychology, and nature. Familiar household objects are strewn across the dunes, as if deposited from a natural disaster, with an accompanying soundscape adding another atmospheric layer.

To achieve the dueling sensations of depth and expanse, the artist distorts perspective with strategically placed mirrors, prompting viewers to question what is real and what is illusion. Golden has introduced a new dimension to her signature practice of warping space—notably employed in her installation, The Meat Grinder’s Iron Clothes, at the 2017 Whitney Biennial—as she looks to the outdoors. Building upon the artist’s original soundscape, visitors are invited to submit audio recordings of their immediate surroundings, with the goal of generating a cumulative and collaborative soundscape over the course of the exhibition.