Fertility Flowers
2021
Interactive Installation composed of Glass, Film, Wood and Scent
An interactive installation of glass, scent and film that uses mythology to address issues surrounding the fertility of women.
Fertility Flowers was part of “ Collaborative Survival”, a group exhibition curated by Danni Shen at the 601artspace located in the Lower East Side.
Goldie Poblador (b. 1987, Manila, Philippines) explores the origins and mythologies behind the Dama de Noche and Peacock flowers, both native to the artist’s home country, the Philippines. Poblador’s multimedium, eco-feminist approach addresses how flowers are taken from their countries of origin and are appropriated through trade. In the tale of the Dama de Noche, the queen is unable to produce an heir and is then turned into a flower. The Peacock flower was also used by West Indian women under colonialism as an abortifacient in order to not bear children into slavery. Poblador’s olfactory installation, entitled Fertility Flowers (2021), transports audiences into miniature worlds rendered through glass, fragrance, performance, and film. The creation of a short film unmasks these narratives around both flowers and their uses, exposing entangled ecologies of colonialism, patriarchy, and the social oppression of women as child-bearers. Poblador’s shapeshifting reimagination attempts to decolonize these histories in which female bodies become flowers as punishment.
Exhibition text by Danni Shen
The best way to recapture what this piece was like is through this video:
Installation view:
Fertility Flowers film stills:
Fertility Flowers Film was made in collaboration with the following:
Director of Photography: Sasha Palomares; Creative Direction by Apa Agbayani; Character Design, Hair and Makeup by Slo Lopez; Production Manager: Tony Battung; Edited by Abby Alcanzare; Color Grading by Bianca Francisco; Music composed and performed by Michelle Sui; Mixed and mastered by Zach Rosenberg
Exhibition Design by Hannah Liongoren; AV programming by Alex Hornstein; Installation Assistance by Sean Maze
Exhibition Video and Sculpture photos by Michelle Sui & Shanhuan Manton
This project was supported, in part, by a Foundation for Contemporary Arts Emergency Grant
Special thanks to 601Artspace and Danni Shen
Press: https://hyperallergic.com/663824/imagining-our-climate-future-artist-speculations-about-climate-change/
top photo by JL Javier, 2024
bottom photo by
Anna Frumenti, 2021
︎︎︎Curriculum Vitae
︎︎︎Artist Statement
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Email goldiepoblador@gmail.com for inquiries
Goldie Poblador is a visual artist who merges glass sculpture, performance, and video into multi-sensory installations that address themes of climate change and the emancipation of the female body.
Artist Biography
Goldie Poblador is a Filipina visual artist who creates multi-sensory installations that merge glass scent, sound and performance that address themes of ecology and decolonization as it relates to the emancipation of the female body.
Her work has been exhibited and performed internationally at such institutions as Artpace, The Corning Museum of Glass, Urban Glass, 601Artspace, The Knockdown Center, Saudi National Museum, The Rubin Museum, Singapore Art Museum, Bangkok Art and Culture Center, Fine Art Museum of Hanoi, Lopez Memorial Museum, Art Fair Philippines, Metropolitan Museum of Manila, The National Museum of the Filipino People and The Cultural Center of the Philippines.
She is the first Filipino artist to be acquired by the Corning Museum of Glass. She has received grants from the Foundation of Contemporary Arts, the University of the Philippines, the Puffin Foundation and a President’s Scholarship from the Rhode Island School of Design. She has completed residencies at Artpace, the Corning Museum of Glass, Oakspring Garden Foundation, MASS MoCa, and the Cité International des Arts. She received her BFA in Studio Arts from the University of the Philippines in 2009. In 2015, she obtained her MFA in Glass at the Rhode Island School of Design.
Registered as Goldieland Studio / New York, NY