Collisions (Day & Dym)

Collisions with Miriam Dym, The Berlin Office, Berlin, Germany

Collision No. 1, The Berlin Office, Berlin, Germany, 2008
Collision No. 2, The Berlin Institute, Berlin, Germany, June 2008

Using collision rather than collaboration as their modus operandi, Day and Dym have set out to jointly create a video–installation which incorporates their divergent work processes and ideas about the human world and which is based on their shared conviction of the necessity of engaging with diverse viewpoints, experiences and beliefs.

Dym invents stringent rules in order to make complex, excessively constructed, embellished objects; she buys no art supplies and throws nothing away. Everything Dym makes has a purpose or a function, although typically she undermines or completely undoes any real functionality through choice of materials and construction methods. The things Dym makes are all components of an on-going, ever-evolving installation. Dym believes that thoughts are things.

Dym received her MFA from Columbia University in New York, after which she promptly moved to California. She has had solo shows and major projects in New York (Brooklyn Museum of Art, Pierogi), California (San Jose Museum of Art, Santa Monica Museum, Susanne Vielmetter Los Angeles Projects, among others), as well as other exciting places in the US and abroad. Dym has had residencies at the Cité des Arts, Paris, UC Berkeley, the Stanford University Digital Art Center and Kala Art Institute. www.dymproducts.com

Left image: Miriam Dym, Shelves 9 & 10 (detail), used fabric etc., 2008, photo credit: Nathalie Latham
Right image: Melissa Day, Hallelujah! Chorus, video still (Richard), TRT: 3 min., 2008