You are invited to the opening reception of Sagan Yee’s DMA MFA mid-residency exhibit, featuring two new works. Originating from a life-long practice of online lurking and in-person eavesdropping, both pieces incorporate found text from real conversations, manually collected and transcribed by the artist over the span of a decade.

sunset is an interactive installation composed of message board posts housed within a vintage CRT monitor, gesturing towards a lost form of broadcast poetics. Caught in the transmission of signals that bounce between yesterday’s headlines and tomorrow’s new crisis, the present moment contracts into the pinprick light of a single photon before vanishing into static.

emergencies, where even a burnt match will not suffice is an animated tableau vivant of surreal figures and conversational fragments overheard in third places around Los Angeles: public transportation, shopping centers, libraries, parks. Casual language made kinetic holds the power to amuse and disturb in equal measure. We listen in, waiting for the storm to pass, for the train to arrive, for another fleeting glimpse into the inner lives of strangers.

exhibit info
LOCATION: Broad Art Center Grad Gallery + EDA
OPENING RECEPTION: Wednesday April 2 // Doors open 5 PM
GALLERY HOURS: April 3 to 4 // 1-3 PM or by appointment

about the artist
Sagan Yee (he/they) is an animator, organizer, and speculative fiction writer from Canada. From 2016 to 2020, they were executive director of Hand Eye Society, a videogame arts non-profit based in Toronto. He is currently a second year DMA graduate student. Find their past work at www.saganyee.com