I promise, mute body

Studio 170 ǀ Residency presents. . .

A two-person experiential exhibition of works by Ena Kantardžić and Sylvie Mayer. I promise, mute body will include generative choreography and performance led by Mary Ann Mayer.

The exhibition is a stage. The grand hall features seats for an audience, present and absent concurrently. The stage constructed for the exhibition is not only a literal one, but a conceptual one, that functions in the round, both through time and space. 

Kantardžić’s kinetic sculptures are stage tech or performance objects performing, hacked, while Mayer’s paintings depict the transitory space of the backstage, dressing rooms, and the Geist of performance. Kantardžić’s sculptures are in a continual choreographic process amidst Mayer’s paintings for the entire duration of the exhibition, setting the scene for a generative collaboration between machine, painting, and dance.

Artist biographies:

Ena Kantardžić is a nowhere artist, sitting in their nowhere land, making all their nowhere plans for nobody. Though currently, they are Artist-in-Residence/Visiting Faculty at the Montserrat College of Art in Beverly, MA. They received an MFA from Cranbrook Academy of Art in 2024. 

Sylvie Mayer is a painter whose work explores interiority, temporality, and theatrical spaces that mediate between public and private. Mayer works from found images, archival materials, and staged collaborations with performers, investigating the mechanics of fiction. Repetition and rehearsal are central to her practice; images are repainted and recontextualized, reflecting the instability of memory and meaning. She received a BFA in Painting from the Rhode Island School of Design and an MFA in Painting from Boston University.