Elise Rasmussen
A Poetic Truth in a Pathetic Fallacy

From January 28 to March 27, 2021

A Poetic Truth in a Pathetic Fallacy documents the Black Mambas, an all-female anti-poaching unit in South Africa whose methods involve active fighting against poachers but also a community education program that teaches sustainable conservationist philosophies. While poaching is the result of an international network supplying to demands which are based on various fallacies pertaining to the acquisition or consumption of the rhino’s horn, this layered portrait contemplates the truth and reality of globalization and extinction. In a critique of colonialist infrastructures, including the collection of rare goods obtained through violent means, this work more broadly looks at bodies, the work they do, how they are made to do it and under the pretext of what systems.

A Poetic Truth in a Pathetic Fallacy (2018) — 16 minutes

Elise Rasmussen’s research-based practice examines stories that have been under recognized by the hegemonic discourse. Photography, video and performance are, for the artist, strategies for imagining new narratives and addressing larger concepts related to notions of power, value systems and the relationship between the personal and the political. She has exhibited, performed and screened her work internationally including venues such as the Brooklyn Museum (New York), The Bronx Museum of the Arts (New York), Pioneer Works (New York), Night Gallery (Los Angeles), Haus der Kulturen der Welt (Berlin), Sharjah Art Foundation (UAE), Institute of Modern Art (Brisbane), Doris McCarthy Gallery at the University of Toronto Scarboroug), and Erin Stump Projects (Toronto). Rasmussen was a 2016 Fellow in The Art & Law Program (New York). Born in Edmonton, Canada, she lives in Brooklyn.