Vanessa Mayoraz

Since 2015, Vanessa Mayoraz has been an Assistant Professor of Extended Media at East Tennessee State University. She received a BFA from the Haute Ecole d’Art et Design in Geneva, Switzerland, and an MFA in Art and Public Spaces and New Artistic Strategies at the Bauhaus University Weimar in Germany. Mayoraz interest centers on observing the paradoxical relations built between humanity, social landscape and the natural world. One could say that her work is the result of an analytical and unromantic examination of nature with which she warns us on how economy (understood as a motivating power of extraction, production, distribution, exchange, and consumption of goods and services to meet our human needs) subjugates these relationships.

She has exhibited nationally and internationally, including Qui Vive! Young Artist Moscow Biennial, the Museum of Contemporary Art of Belgrade, Le Commun at the Building of Contemporary Art in Geneva, Switzerland, Gleisdreieck Parc, Berlin, Germany, Chashama Gallery in New York City, the DC Art Center in Washington DC, and ArtPrize in Grand Rapids, MI. In 2019 in conjunction with ArtBo Fin de Semana, she presented a solo exhibition at Sketchroom Gallery in Bogotà, Colombia. She has been performing workshops and lectures on subjects such as “artist as archivist” and “contemporary art practices.” She received a Pro-Helvetia national Swiss grant three times for her work, as well as a Swiss Cultural Program in the Western Balkan grant. Mayoraz also serves on the executive board of the Johnson City Public Art Committee.

According to Rayleigh

According to Rayleigh is a participatory work where viewers are invited to exchange a light bulb from their home with a blue light bulb that is given away. On a displayed city map they can indicate the future location of the blue bulb in the city. They are asked to keep the light one for the duration of the exhibition.

According to Rayleigh is a multiple layered work that assumes a simple visual form to better unfold in the visitor’s life and imagination. Primarily about the viewers connection with others and their correlations within society. According to Rayleigh is a gesture that emphasis the idea of choice, freedom, and trust, essentials element for a functioning society. This performative action is anchored in our intrinsic relationship to science, our primal need to explain our environment to unveil its mystery. Rayleigh was the scientist who demonstrated why the sky is blue by proving that blue waives have the longest wavelength and therefore can travel the longest distance.

The work echoes deeply with our time of physical distancing. A couple month back, we could accomplish this gesture without thinking. Today it takes other dimensions, it reminds us the preciousness of moments that we take for granted.

INVITATION

By taking a blue light bulb today and exchanging it with one in your home/workspace you are becoming part of this work. Please keep it on 24/7 during the duration of the show (25-27/9). The participatory quality of this gesture emphasis our connection as human how trust, freewill, and personal investment creates moments. The ephemeral aspect of mirror the fragility and constant need of attention for society to perdure.

Please place a marker on the map to signify where the light bulb will reside during the show.

You can if you wish post pictures of your installation on Instagram with the following tag #AccordingtoRayleigh.

Thank you very much for your participation!

https://vanessamayoraz.com/home.html