Nari Ward Sub Mirage Lignum

Nari Ward’s dramatic sculptural installations are composed of material systematically collected from the neighborhoods where he lives and works or is personally connected to. By revealing the complex emotional registers inherent within everyday found objects, Ward’s work examines issues of race, poverty, and consumer culture and the inherent meaning and gravity we place upon objects from the discarded to the treasured.
At MASS MoCA, Ward created a new installation encompassing the entire second floor of Building 4, which visitors could experience as both a large-scale environment and as a series of smaller yet connected spaces. The title, Sub Mirage Lignum, represents the three main themes of the exhibition: sub, in the dual sense of “underneath” and “substitute for another (space)”; mirage, a false image produced by the refraction of light, subject to human interpretation; and lignum, derived from Lignum Vitae (“wood of life”), a tree whose bloom is the national flower of Jamaica.