Public Programs & Livestream: Ilopango, The Volcano That Left

Throughout her practice, Beatriz Cortez considers the experience of migration through the lens of simultaneity, creating a nomadic framework in which her sculptures cross temporal, geographic, and cultural boundaries. The artist asks “Imagine what might happen if everything is on the move? If continents are rafts? If the landscape and the mountains are transforming? If sculptures themselves are on the move?”

Livestream

Envisioned as part of Cortez’s project at Storm King Art Center, Ilopango, the Volcano that Left will depart the Art Center on a three-day performative journey along the Hudson River to EMPAC–Curtis R. Priem Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center in Troy, NY where it will be included in the exhibition Shifting Center. A sculptural footprint will be left in its wake on Museum Hill, defining an absence that speaks to Cortez’s ongoing engagement with the potential of impermanence and movement.

Schedule for Volcano Journey
The volcano will leave Storm King on Friday, October 27, traveling up the river aboard the John J. Harvey fireboat to Kingston, where it will dock at the Hudson River Maritime Museum. On Sunday, October 29, it will continue on to Troy’s Federal Lock and Dam, which marks the end of the tidal estuary and the meeting of the Mohawk and Hudson Rivers. 

Public Programs
October 27, 2023 @ 5PM: Reception @ Hudson River Maritime Museum
October 29, 2023 @ 3PM: Reception@ The Sanctuary for Independent Media

Viewing Locations: Map
As the volcano sails upriver, the public will be able to witness the sculpture from various viewing points along both shores. Visitors are also invited to view the work when it rests for the night at the Maritime Museum in Kingston, and to gather in welcoming the volcano as it passes through the Federal Lock and Dam near The Sanctuary for Independent Media in Troy.

Viewing Locations: Itinerary

Video: Ilopango, the Volcano that Left from EMPAC @ Rensselaer on Vimeo.

The volcano’s journey is presented in partnership with EMPAC–Curtis R. Priem Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and the Vera List Center for Art and Politics at The New School.