Opening Reception: Subject to Surviving | Juvana Soliven

Art League Houston is pleased to present “Subject to Surviving,” the Texas debut solo exhibition of Honolulu-based artist Juvana Soliven. This installation presents a years-long exploration of work that utilizes a pixelated censor motif as a visual language, which speaks to themes of bodily autonomy, gender performance, and survival.

Soliven’s work has been guided by Audre Lorde’s “The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House”, as well as Terri Kapsalis’ “Mastering the Female Pelvis: Race and Tools of Reproduction”, an essay which articulates the horror of gynecological practices suffered by enslaved Black women, the mass sterilization by the US of women and girls in Puerto Rico, the forced sterilization of incarcerated women, and coercive and “incentivized” contraceptive trials placed on poor women of color around the world by US and European governments. These are systems of control exercised against women under the guise of societal improvement and medical advancement that would contribute to the fulfillment of our duties in society.