As part of the 18th MOMENTA Biennale de l’image, the McCord Stewart Museum presents “Mother Memory Cellophane,” an exhibition by MFA candidate Séamus Gallagher. The exhibition is on view September 6 through February 4.
Imagined as a phantasmic theatre that includes a video projection and a series of five lenticular photographs, this installation was inspired by an event that took place at the 1939 New York World’s Fair, titled “World of Tomorrow.” To mark the occasion, the DuPont company presented Miss Chemistry, a model meant to personify Chemistry and serve as a living advertisement for the world premiere of nylon stockings. Personifying this allegory, which symbolizes both stereotypical femininity and the period’s synthetic material culture, Séamus Gallagher invites us to reflect on this plastic embodiment of the woman of the future and the omnipresence of synthetic materials in our contemporary lives.