Anicka Yi: Message from the Mud 

 

May 17 – November 9, 2026

Storm King Art Center

 

Photo by Jeffrey Jenkins

 

Anicka Yi's (American, b. South Korea, 1971) installation at Storm King, Message from the Mud, the artist's first large-scale outdoor project, is arranged like an archaeological dig, inviting viewers to engage with concepts of deep geological time and evolutionary history through the lens of "prehistoric biofiction." This term refers to an imaginative approach to the early history of the planet, using scientific data as a jumping-off point, to envision what life might have looked like if different evolutionary histories had taken course, and what it could look like in possible futures.

 

Rising from a shallow artist-designed pool at the center of the excavated site are acrylic columns filled with organic matter, standing like ruins of a soil-emerging world where past, present, and future environmental timescales overlap. Utilizing a soil science technology invented in the late 1880s by Russian-Ukrainian ecologist Sergei Winogradsky, Yi combined soil and water with sources of carbon and calcium to create observable communities of microorganisms. Through exposure to sunlight and time, diverse arrays of algae, cyanobacteria, and microbial colonies emerge in layers of vibrant colors reminiscent of abstract paintings, visible through the clear surface of the columns. These soil ecosystems reveal how all life is grounded in interdependence, with each microbial community sustaining and being sustained by the others around it. By using water and soil samples sourced from Storm King's South Ponds, Yi's cultures offer a complex microbiological portrait of the landscape.

 

Often bringing together natural and human-made components, Yi's work explores the potential for collaboration between artists and autonomous living organisms and organic processes. Yi has said of her practice, "I seek to expand the possibilities of how we perceive ourselves and our place within the broader ecological framework. . . . Through this lens, my art becomes a space for contemplating not only what was, but what could be, in the ongoing narrative of life on Earth." With Message from the Mud, Yi extends this inquiry into the interdependence that underlies all living systems, reminding viewers that even the smallest organisms participate in the vast, unfolding story of Earth's becoming. 

 

Anicka Yi: Message from the Mud is organized by Nora Lawrence, Executive Director, and Adela Goldsmith, Assistant Curator.

 

 

Photo by Jeffrey Jenkins

 

*Message from the Mud: A Conversation with Anicka Yi & Rana Dasgupta

Saturday, June 27, 2026    

3:30 pm - 6:00 pm 

 

Join artist Anicka Yi and author Rana Dasgupta for a conversation anchored by Message from the Mud, Yi’s first large-scale outdoor installation. In their respective work, both Yi and Dasgupta consider life and interdependence in the context of human and non-human systems across vast timescales, offering new ways to understand the past, metabolize our present, and open pathways to imagine new futures.

 

 

Anicka Yi (b.1971 in Seoul, South Korea) is a Korean-American conceptual artist known for her focus on olfaction and her use of unorthodox, living, and perishable materials. Informed by scientific research, biology, and perfumers, Yi has produced a unique body of work over the past decade at the intersection of politics and macrobiotics. Her practice questions the increasingly hazy taxonomic distinctions between what is human, animal, plant, and machine, and is the result of an alchemical process of experimentation that explores often incompatible materials. She collaborates with researchers to create media that are often inherently political and delves into the cultural conditioning of sense and perception in a way she describes as “biopolitics of the senses." Her diverse installations, which draw on scientific concepts and techniques to activate vivid fictional scenarios, ask incisive questions about human psychology and the workings of society. Yi's work has been the subject of numerous solo exhibitions at institutions around the world, including the Leeum Museum of Art, Seoul; Pirelli Hangar Bicocca, Milan; Tate Modern, London; the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; and the List Visual Arts Center, MIT, Cambridge, Massachusetts; among many others.

 

About Storm King Art Center

Storm King Art Center is a 500-acre outdoor museum located in New York’s Hudson Valley, where visitors experience large-scale sculpture and site-specific commissions under open sky. Since 1960, Storm King has been dedicated to stewarding the hills, meadows, and forests of its site and surrounding landscape. Building on the visionary thinking of its founders, Storm King supports artists and some of their most ambitious works. Changing exhibitions, programming, and seasons offer discoveries with every visit. 

 

 

*휴고보스상 수상 아니카 이(Anicka Yi), 인생은 싸구려@구겐하임뮤지엄, 2017

https://www.nyculturebeat.com/?mid=Art2&document_srl=3573183   

 

 

*스톰킹 아트센터(Storm King Art Center) 가이드 

https://www.nyculturebeat.com/?mid=Travel2&document_srl=4183364