Amniotic Ambiguity exhibit reception

Amniotic Ambiguity is a collaborative art installation that invites viewers to return to a place before definition. In this period of incubation, black or white thinking is disrupted by a bold labor of love. Aykeem Spivey and Maggie Adams, in collaboration with friends and peers alike, created a space to reconsider our relationship to humanity. Using the embryo, a seemingly alien yet universal form, they are encouraging audiences to empathize with ambiguity, assessing the necessity of legibility for queering a space.

To queer a space is to consider different perspectives and resist the compulsion to authorize hierarchies between self and other. Difference is not only welcome in our space, but it is also vital to maintaining it. Spivey and Adams take an intermedia approach in pursuit of celebrating difference by melding painting, sculpture and ceramics. Each is chosen for its capacity to provide a sense of bodily tactility and emotionality, and to symbolize the interior of the womb. Together, they create an immersive environment that welcomes viewers to sit with discomfort and reevaluate their relationship to empathy, both spiritually and physically.