Reserved Channel creates a speculative species, called the Tuning Fish (Aplodinotus melos). Sourced from the Distillery Building and the nearby Reserved Channel, these drawings, rubbings, silkscreen prints, electrostatic prints, and sounds bring us back underwater, imagining what might have happened if the South Boston seashore was never filled in. This collection of works is the Tuning Fish's message to us. Old sea walls meet walls of the building’s boiler room, administrative offices, beams, and stairwells. Surfaces become portholes and monuments, asking: What ground is this? Where are the edges? What does the Channel remember? What’s that tune? What channel is this? What time is it? Did you hear that?
Curated by Lucie March and Lena Warnke.
On view: March 8, 2025 – April 14, 2025
Opening reception: Saturday March 8, 6 - 9 PM
Martha Schnee is an artist, writer, and musician based in Somerville. She performs with her band/art collective sidebody and co-directs sidebody press. She is a Teaching Fellow in the Art, Film, Visual Studies department at Harvard University and teaches Studio for Drawing at the Massachusetts College of Art and Design. When she was a kid she used to kiss the bottom of every pool she swam in to thank it and remember it forever.
PRESS
The Ticket: Critics’ Picks
The Boston Globe
A Conversation with Martha Schnee
Writing Professionally
Martha Schnee’s Embodied Archaeology and the Politics of Imagination
Boston Art Review
Photos by Yulia Spiridonova