Salon for Possible Futures
beeswax, pressed flowers/herbs, bones, pigments, and gampi tissue, 2024-2025
26 custom ritual candles to accompany the programming for Amy Kligman’s Salon for Possible Futures. The candles are displayed alongside the works and contributions of Kligman and several other artists in the interactive installation in the Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art’s Oppenheimer New Media Gallery for the duration of 2025. Over the course of the installation the candles are burned and their remnants are archived in the Salon’s cabinets.
“At its heart, the candle contains the fuel for its own destruction; but without the wick, it is only a lump of wax. A candle’s potential for light is what defines it… not its melting. Likewise, a salon is just a room without people interacting within its walls. Salons are the space between public and private, where we come together with an understanding of engagement.”
~ Laura Pensar
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Possible Futures
snake skeleton, pressed Mexican heather flowers, gold dust
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Joy Amidst Chaos
spiral-dressed: lavender (happiness), salvia (wisdom), chamomile (energy + abundance)
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Seed Swap
yarrow leaves and split chili pepper with seeds spilling out
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Good Luck Charms
spiral of mint + horseradish leaf (luck), olive leaf + rose (serenity), pressed hydrangea flower dusted with gold (abundance)
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Letterlocking
pure-gold leaf and handwriting on gampi tissue
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Sustainable Ecology
cedar leaf, juniper berries, palo Santo, dragonfly wings, pressed yarrow leaves
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The Hermit's Guide
spirals of red and black pigment, typed slips of gampi tissue: “a spectator should not look at the cards of a player without permission” (The New Complete Hoyle, Revised)
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Living Room Karaoke
pure-gold leaf and gold dust
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I Miss You
mint + horseradish leaf (luck + protection), olive leaf + rose (serenity + love) with typed slips of gampi tissue: “YOU MAY FORGET, Let me tell you this; someone in some future time will think of us” (Sappho, fragment 76)
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Utopia
pressed blue flowers and assorted small animal teeth
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Dystopia
broken wishbone pieces
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Game Day
rosemary (inspiration), lavender (creativity), pressed flower, typed slips of gampi tissue: “PLAY is far older than culture” (The New Complete Hoyle, Revised)
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Community Care
pressed alyssum flower (worth beyond beauty) on “ground” of powdered feverfew (healing), horseradish leaf (protection), marigold petals (grief + rebirth)
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Lessons Learned
spiral-dressed with dripping black powder, emu atlas bone (reference to the Emu War of 1932), garnet crystal (light)
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Hands Around The Table
multiple layers of alternating red and black pigment spirals, inlaid slips of gampi tissue with hand-drawn suit symbols
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Visible Mending
peacock feather strand spiraled with muskrat tooth-shard “needle”
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Scary Stories
“drippy” black band of black pigment, assorted broken animal teeth
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Hands Around The Table
vertical stripes of inlaid red + black pigment, typed slips of gampi tissue: “the player that believes they cannot be deceived is in grave danger” (S.W. Erdnase, The Expert at the Card Table)
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Heroes
powdered feverfew (healing), horseradish leaf (protection), and marigold petals (grief + rebirth) with typed slips of gampi tissue: “sing a song of sixpence a pocketful of rye, 4 & twenty blackbirds pecked out the kingly eye".”
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Collective Imagining
chamomile + lavender (calm), frankincense (offerings), rose petals (love), nettle (resilience) with intact wishbone (potential) and aquamarine crystal (good luck)
