Heaven Knows
Caroline Garcia
GALLERY III
Caroline Garcia, Fair Warning to the Gods (Stockwhip), 2024, rattan, sting ray barbs, manila rope, paracord, kevlar thread, wire, 48 x 3 x 3 inches.
May 31–June 29, 2025
Opening reception: Saturday, May 31, from 6–8pm
A.I.R. Gallery is pleased to announce Heaven Knows, a solo exhibition by 2024–2025 A.I.R. Fellow Caroline Garcia. Borrowing from neuroscience and mourning rituals from Indigenous Philippine folk religions, Garcia considers how grief compels the brain to enter a state of motivation through a yearning for the lost connection. She applies this research to her own personal narrative to create a neural remapping of her grief, one which travels through the realm of instinct to find meaning in new and metaphysical realities. Clay artifacts and a holographic installation draw on both ancient and digital technologies to participate in a nonlinear continuum that carries the living past forever forward.
Heaven Knows expands upon Garcia’s research and practice in martial arts to consider technologies of warfare that guard against paranormal rather than physical threats. A student of Inosanto LaCoste Kali, she cites the system’s final, twelfth category, a study of immaterial weapons—mental, emotional, and spiritual training tools that provide esoteric methods of protection. In so doing, she acknowledges the existence of a parallel spirit world and the permeability of the earthly and metaphysical planes, posing a unique series of protocols to engage with the upper echelon.
The central artwork in the exhibition is a pyramid-shaped installation fabricated from bamboo, raffia, and steel iron, natural materials native to the Philippines. It references funerary rites widespread throughout the Archipelago, particularly the custom of guarding the departed from malevolent spirits by interring them with talismans, weapons, and agricultural tools. These ancient cultural rituals combine with the aesthetics of contemporary technology: a synthesized soundscape composed by Sonia Manalili surrounds the installation, while a 3D-rendered video is displayed within the pyramid’s transparent panes. Integrating digital imagery sourced from mediumship readings, the hologram attempts to commune with and guard Garcia’s mother in the spiritual realm, but also intends to conjure a speculative record of her in the afterlife. In lieu of remembrance through material records and past memories, Garcia builds a metaphysical archive to coalesce future and after-death experiences. Through this psychic collaboration, magic and religion mingle to annihilate space and time, reinforcing an omnipresence of the ancestral.
Acknowledging the symbiotic ways in which the living and the dead might protect each other, Garcia also offers a series of ceramic pieces that cite Lab-labón (or Adug): small incised clay houses where spirits are believed to dwell. Traditional to the Indigenous Tingguian, these houses are typically stored among rice jars in the belief that residing spirits multiply the rice. Offerings are deposited inside as a gesture to ask for the protection of crops and to ensure a good harvest. Garcia’s renditions are incised in an improvisational manner, using custom 3D-printed stamps modeled from designs on earthenware sherds dating back to the Iron Age ca. 500 - 200 B.C.
Heaven Knows has been assisted by the Australian Government through Creative Australia, its principal arts investment and advisory body.
Caroline Garcia is a 2025-28 Jerome Hill Artist Fellow: Technology Centered Arts, 2023 NYSCA/NYFA Artist Fellow: Digital/Electronic Arts, 2021 New York Artadia Awardee, 2021-22 Franklin Furnace Fund recipient, and the 2018/19 American Australian Association’s AUSART Fellow. She has presented work at The SHED, Lincoln Center, Apexart, Creative Time Summit X & HQ, Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts, Smack Mellon, and The Vera List Center, among others (all NYC); and internationally at the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, Sydney Opera House, Manila Biennale, Art Central Hong Kong, Tai Kwun Contemporary, Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Center, Galerie Tanja Wagner, and Salzburger Kunstverein, among others. She was in residence at the EMPAC in 2016/17, The Studios at MASS MoCA in 2019, Pioneer Works (Tech) and the Institute for Electronic Arts (Experimental Projects) in 2021, and was awarded the Edwards Charitable Giving Trust Residency at ISCP in 2020 & 2023. She is a former Recess Session artist for 2021-22, LMCC Workspace artist for 2022-23, and is currently the Louise H. McCagg A.I.R. Fellow for 2024-25. Garcia holds an MFA in Fine Arts from Parsons The New School of Art, Media, and Technology.
View Caroline Garcia’s page here.
View the Press Release here.