WILL OWEN
FRIENDSHIP GAMES (ETUDES (1&2)
(Philadelphia, PA, USA)
Project Description: In 2019, I was a fellow with CEC ArtsLink at the Back Apartment Residency in St. Petersburg. As part of my time there, I cast the ears of a few freestyle wrestlers who had Hematoma Auris also known as cauliflower ear. Cauliflower ear is a condition in which the ear cartilage changes its physical state -- it hardens and becomes misshapen after an inflicted impact. I have since expanded on the idea and enlarged the cast ears to be 3 times larger than their original size. I will place 2 enlarged ears in my apartment windows. One ear will be from my time in Russia and another from a wrestler here in the US. I will also create a companion poster series to place around town with images of the two ears-- the poster, like the ears, will be disembodied from the rest of the project as a way to point towards the complexity and abstraction of shifting of states: Physically, Politically, and Emotionally.
Raised in North Carolina, Will Owen is an artist, composer, and curator currently based in Philadelphia, PA. Will works mainly with Sound, Installation Design, and Food. He has exhibited, presented, and performed internationally in China, Denmark, France, Iceland, Freetown Christiania, Wales, Pakistan, and Russia. Additionally, he has shown work or presented extensively in the US at institutions including The Museum of the Moving Image (NYC), Philadelphia Water Works Museum, Creative Time Summit (As a Flux Factory artist), Black Mountain College Museum (NC), Independent Seaport Museum (Philadelphia) and Flux Factory (NYC) as well as non-traditional spaces like an interstate bus, an abandoned gas station, and a public park.