Kristina Libby, Heartbleed
Curated by Melinda Wang

SPRING/BREAK Art Show, NYC's curator-driven art fair during Armory Arts Week
Room 1139
625 Madison Avenue, New York, NY

VIP Previews: Wednesday-Thursday, September 8-9, 11am-9pm
Hours: Friday-Monday, September 10-13, 11am-8pm
Tickets: www.springbreakartshow.com
Artwork for sale: www.springbreakartfair.com

Heartbleed is an immersive installation by Kristina Libby that honors the lives lost during the COVID-19 pandemic. Each fallen rose petal in the film represents one American we have lost and every two seconds represents the passage of one day since January 2020. A contemporary memento mori, the softly falling petals become a storm of red as we recall our collective trauma of the past 18 months.

Growing from Libby’s “The Floral Heart Project,” with impromptu heart-shaped floral garlands appearing in cities around the United States as ephemeral living public memorials, the film explores how we process loss, understand global trauma on a local scale and translate statistics into an emotional experience. The piece is fraught with intertwining emotions as we see the grace and poetry of the image, but can also comprehend that the crescendo of petals equates to an exponential number of deaths and lives touched by loss.

Heartbleed is an offering to our communities. It asks whether art can help us cope with grief, trauma, anxiety and isolation and whether a memorial can provide and promote healing. Perhaps by connecting and feeling connected, we may decrease the burden of carrying the weight of our emotions alone -- as we turn collective grief into collective healing.

Kristina Libby believes art can be a powerful catalyst in generating cultural change. Her work combines social practice, art historical influences and traditional fine arts techniques. From flowers to seascapes to found bones, she utilizes the natural world as a muse to provide a mirror to ourselves. Libby has used art to help heal the community during the COVID-19 pandemic. Her work has been featured in the New York Times, the Washington Post, the New York Post, New York Magazine, NBC, ABC and FOX and been exhibited at the Arizona Historical Society Museum, One Community Museum and the Milwaukee Art Museum. She has a B.A. from Dalhousie University and a M.A. from the University of Denver.

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