Mika Rottenberg: NoNoseKnows & Squeeze

A Glasgow International exhibition

In NoNoseKnows, Rottenberg draws parallels between the culturing of pearls in China and empty housing developments littered across the country.

Within an anonymous building, we witness Bunny Glamazon, a 6’5” blonde Amazonian woman, in her supervision of the pearl-making process. Self-inducing an allergic reaction causes her nose to inflate and grow, where she sneezes out various noodle dishes, eventually popping the enigmatic bubbles occupying various rooms of the building.

Squeeze continues Rottenberg’s inquiry into the mechanisms by which value is generated, considering the logistics of global outsourcing and the alchemy of art production.

Footage from a constructed studio set in New York is linked to a lettuce farm in Arizona, USA and a rubber plant in Kerala, India. This film is an architectural portrait of crisscrossing assembly lines: a multidirectional labyrinth that spins energy within a closed circuit. The central protagonist, the product, is only revealed through its raw ingredients. In the continuous video loop, the manufacturing process is never completed, remaining in constant flux.

This exhibition is part of a group show at Tramway, curated by the festival Director Sarah McCrory and co-designed by artist Martin Boyce as part of the Director's Programme.