HIGH LINE ART
Echoes from the Vaults
A High Line Channel video exhibition
Screens daily starting at 5pm, March 18 – May 8, 2025
On the High Line at 14th Street
Demands for the repatriation of artifacts held by Western museums have intensified in recent years, reflecting a growing movement to decolonize institutions and properly acknowledge the origins of these objects before they were associated with a price tag or a display case. The underlying reality is that artifacts are often victims of illicit trade and criminal networks; they’ve been looted or extracted from their home, and their identities forgotten, lost, or hidden. Echoes from the Vaults brings together works by three artists that tell these objects’ stories using narrative tools and themes more likely found in horror films than heroic fairy tales. Maeve Brennan’s An Excavation, Jala Wahid’s I Love Ancient Baby, and Kent Chan’s Shivers similarly employ close-cropped camera shots, dissonant sounds, and pulsing rhythms to evoke an unsettling sensation in the audience. By referencing varying states of limbo—a common metaphorical tool in horror films—the films depict purgatorial worlds both real and imagined.
