Berenice Olmedo’s work questions assumptions regarding the “natural” physical human constitution, proclaiming it, on the contrary, as essentially diverse; along the way she likewise probes authoritarian social structures that serve as universal cultural references. Not only are our bodies physically and symbolically shaped by culturally evolved categories, she asserts, but so are our ways of thinking and categorizing.

Jala Wahid’s uncanny mesh of nurturing, embellishing, perishable, fragile materials—makeup, food coloring, sugar, grapefruit, argan oil—with industrial, construction-related elements reveals a schizophrenic, unpredictable attitude suggestive of discursive and cultural ambivalence.