In her solo exhibition “Hoarse Globules,” Sandra Mujinga fabricates a world where tactile beings and atmospheres evolve through digital technologies into a continuation of the screens we scroll through every day. In Touch-Face 1–3, 2018, three large standing sculptures made of gray PU leather, Lycra, and polyester resemble mutant hybrids of humans and elephant trunks. On the floor, a polyester octopus-like sculpture emerges from under a pane of Plexiglas that bears a photograph of a human hand. The work, Octo Clutch / Temporary Home, 2018, connects the sensorial similarities between tentacles and human fingers. The glossy fabric sculptures MOTTLE, 2018, and Shawl (Elephant Ears #1, 2, 3, 6), 2017, are orphaned specimens of white latex, glycerin, and pleather scattered across the ground, flaccidly outlining the bodies they once veiled.

The bodies presented in this show are further complicated in Mujinga’s video installations and performances. RE-IMAGINING THINGS I, 2018, shown across three large screens, includes colorful abstractions, a sampling of Usher’s slow jam “Climax,” an interview with science-fiction writer Octavia Butler, and sounds from other appropriated footage. This proved a complex environment for a one-off performance, on June 1, by six black women who seemed to disappear into the immersive projections. Like many of her contemporaries, Mujinga implies—via humanoid and elephantine limbs, projections, and an unconventional use of materials—that the means to touch, be touched, and produce affect is not an inevitable human ability. Rather, it is always and already mediated.

— Sara R. Yazdani