Ilana Savdie: Radical Contractions

Savdie often draws a parallel between the turmoil resulting from incremental moves toward fascism around the globe—such as the silencing, erasure, and violence faced by the most vulnerable communities—and the forces at play in the natural world. Under moments of duress, humans, like animals and other living organisms, recoil as a protective mechanism. Other responses, such as fighting or resisting, may cause a predator to tense up and tighten its grip on its subject. Savdie sees these biological impulses to contract or resist as mirroring reactions to the legacies of oppressive political climates, and her interest plays out here in formal terms. The artist’s exploration of a centripetal force pulls the viewer’s focus toward the center of the composition and causes a confusion of boundaries. The roadmap to disentangle these biomorphic forms is unclear, challenging the binary of predator-prey and suggesting a sinister scene of constriction in which survival seems questionable.