Sheila C. Johnson Design Center
Arnold and Sheila Aronson Galleries
66 Fifth Ave
Parsons School of Design
(under)REPRESENT(ed) is an exhibition that features Parsons alumni of color whose creative practices explore the lived experience of race and aim to dismantle systems of racism.
Kaitlynn Redell, MFA Fine Arts ’13
Kaitlynn Redell is a visual artist based in Los Angeles, CA. She received her BFA from Otis College of Art and Design in 2009 and her MFA from Parsons School Of Design in 2013. Her practice is invested in the exploration of race and gender in relation to the body and how the body becomes codified within these socially constructed categorizations. More specifically she is interested in juxtaposition and how “unidentifiable” bodies—that do not identify with standard categories—negotiate identity. She has participated in numerous exhibitions nationally and internationally including at El Museo del Barrio (NYC), Rush Arts Gallery (NYC), A.I.R. Gallery (NYC), Western Project (LA), Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery (LA), Charlie James Gallery (LA) and Museo Laboratorio – Ex Manifattura Tabacchi (Italy). Her work is currently on view at the 32nd Biennial of Graphic Arts: Birth As Criterion, in Ljubljana, Slovenia. In October, she will have work included in No Longer Negotiable at Nous Tous in Chinatown, Los Angeles.
Domestic Air, Space
Kaitlynn Redell, MFA Fine Arts ’13,
2017,
Cut digital C-print and balsa wood
In Domestic Air, Space, Redell explores the fluidity of memory and the influx nature of personal and collective histories via extensive research of her Auntie (Great Aunt) Hilda Yen. Yen was one of the first female, Chinese aviators (beginning in the 1930s) and was a member of the League of Nations and the World Women’s Party for Equal Rights. In this series of sculptural photo papercuts, Redell investigates the historical and personal mythology that has been built around her Auntie and how women like Yen are so often left out of “commonly known” history.
“Give your women legal equality willingly and in good spirit, or have it taken from you.” – Hilda Yen (1935 address to the League of Nations)
“I am interested in the fluidity of memory and the influx nature of personal and collective
histories, which has brought me to researching my Auntie Hilda (Yen). Hilda is an Auntie on
my mother’s side. She was one of the first female, Chinese aviators
(beginning in the 1930s) and was a member of the League of Nations and the World
Women’s Party for Equal Rights. I’m interested in the historical and personal
mythology that has been built around her and how women like her are so often left out of
“commonly known” history.
As I’ve gotten deeper into the research she’s become more and more fascinating to me in
terms of how she’s been represented (or not) as a historical figure. Equally there is this
whole other side in relation to my family’s personal memories of her. I’m interested in the
kind of dovetailing between my mother and uncle’s fragmented memories of her and the
glimpses of her representation in printed “history” (newspaper articles, League of Nations
documents). A lot of the documentation is so representative of the racial and gender biases
of the time period; I’m interested in how that narrative frames the information provided and
only tells a fragment of the story.
I think that one–unnervingly contemporary–quote from Hilda’s 1935 address to the League
of Nations sums up how I interpret her mythology: “Give your women legal equality willingly and in good spirit, or have it taken from you.”.”
kaitlynnredell.com