QUILT, 2022. On view at the Rochester Institute of Technology as part of the Anna Ballarian Visiting Artist Series.
SHIFTING FOUNDATIONS, 2023. This vibrantly painted sculpture suggests the idea of a home undergoing change, with its construction-orange color, crisscrossing scaffolding, and missing sections. While inside the museum a series of paintings focuses on people in interior “home” spaces, the sculpture talks about “home” from an exterior perspective and highlights how housing is becoming increasingly more difficult for people to obtain.
There are many reasons for the shortage of affordable housing, including limited land availability, not enough houses being built, population growth, and a lack of affordable housing investment. Although the lack of affordable homes is increasing, there are also many vacant homes including abandoned homes and luxury investment properties. Taking inspiration from the map-like design on the sculpture, how can we plan housing and work together to ensure everyone has a good home? When there's no ceiling, how can we complete our collective global home to build a roof over all of our heads?
On view at the Springfield Museum of Art, Ohio.
ANATOMIES FROM ARCHITECTURES, 2024. While passing through the Ante-Purgatory, Dante hears the following words from one of the souls: “Whoever you are, walking as you go, turn your face towards me and try to remember if you have ever seen me in the world.” These words could act as a summary for this installation, since the 500 photographs that form it portray people who do not exist in real life and who, instead, were generated by a computer.
In general, the image generation process has two phases. The first is the training process, where millions of images of real people (mostly taken from selfies sent by social media users) guide the optimization of a learning model and its architecture. The second phase is the generation process itself, where random noise is converted by the trained model into the image of a human being. The images used during the training stage, those that belonged to real people, then become like shadows of the people they represent—shadows that are now confined to living in the memory of a server or a computer to obey the whims of it and its users.
For the installation, Byron and García Trillos used a pre-trained application that allows you to specify text and other image prompts to guide the generation process. In choosing their prompts, they sought to create a wide variety of selfie-like images exploring specific color patterns, different photographic and light qualities, different time periods and locations, different climatic conditions, and most importantly, images that tell diverse stories from a wide variety of “people.” In this network of sometimes seemingly familiar faces, they are both in conversation with each other and simultaneously disconnected from one another.
However, the issue of the generation of human beings in this installation goes beyond the simple generation of images, and in particular, the installation seeks to draw attention to the freedom with which these new technological platforms can use personal data for purposes with harmful societal consequences.
QUILT, 2021. In a quilt many different parts, each with its own story, come together to form a complex system, much like how we are all intricately connected to each other and to the natural environment. If one part of the quilt is removed, the pattern becomes unbalanced. In this sculpture, each square section or quilt block is unique, varying in depth, pattern, and color, but combined the larger quilt pattern becomes even more unique.
Quilting is a traditional practice that can be found throughout the world, in textile form and also in other formats such as painted on barn exteriors throughout the US. Handmade patchwork quilts are strongly linked to ideas surrounding warmth, memory, home, and the cycle of life. Quilts are also symbolic of creativity through resourcefulness as pieces of the quilt are often made from scraps of no longer useful fabrics or clothes. In this sculpture, for example, Quilt is made in part from wood that was repurposed from the support frame of a previous sculpture, and cut at different lengths and depths to form an interlocking arrangement.
PLASTIC DREAMS: SUNRISE AND SUNSET. Plastic Dreams: Sunrise and Sunset is an outdoor sculpture made from recycled plastic and located in Messejana, Portugal. Messejana is a small rural town of about 800 people. The sculpture is made from hundreds of pounds of plastic which was collected, washed, sorted by type and color, shredded, and then molded into 300 individual parts with a DIY manual injection machine.
PLASTIC WATERS. Made out of different types of plastic waste such as used plastic bags and discarded synthetic fabrics, Plastic Waters illustrates plastic’s contribution to climate change represented by rising water levels. This sculpture was made for Winter is Alive! a citywide art event in Madison, Wisconsin, addressing climate change.
THE TIDES THAT CONNECT OUR BOATS. Through storms and starry nights, in the broad ocean or the safety of home-- where are they going and what are they carrying? Do they travel together or do they travel alone? In this installation, artist Lelia Byron uses a maritime theme as a vehicle for thinking about the multiscale and interconnected nature of the world. The project explores the idea of community and how as individuals we make up both local communities and a broader global community, both in space and time. When many individually unique paper boats are tied together in the installation they form an intricate web of connection.
In collaboration with Raumars, Lelia Byron came to Rauma to work on this installation from February to April 2020. Lelia worked with 5th, 6th, and 7th graders in five classes at two schools in Rauma (Rauman Normaalikoulu and Pyynpään Koulu) to make the prints in this installation. The project encouraged students to think about art as a language for telling their stories and ideas, and to reflect on ties with history and the future, Rauma and the world.
In the first component of this project, students mapped the course of their imaginary boats by creating symbols and patterns to tell visual narratives about their journeys. These patterns were then cut out of cardboard and used to make printing plates. Next, students explored the million color sea as they rolled, splattered, and mixed paint to make backgrounds for their prints. Finally, students anchored the imagined by creating multiple final prints with their cardboard printing plates. These student-made prints were then turned into paper boats, creating the core of this larger “ocean” installation.
Vedet, jotka veneitämme yhdistää
Lelia Byronin ja raumalaisten koululaisten yhteistyönä valmistunut Vedet jotka veneitämme yhdistää (The Tides That Connect Our Boats) -installaatio, käsittelee yhteisöllisyyden teemaa niin paikallisesti kuin globaalisti, sekä tilassa että ajassa. Yksittäiset pienet paperiveneet tarinoineen muodostavat yhdessä yhden suuren kokonaisuuden, tarinoiden verkon.
Byron on työskennellyt helmi-huhtikuun aikana Rauman Normaalikoulussa sekä Pyynpään koulussa viiden eri luokan ja heidän opettajiensa Heidi Lehtosen, Laura Saurimaan ja Lasse Rahkosen kanssa. Kuvataidetuntien ainaka oppilaat harjoittivat omaa kuvakieltään ja tarinankerrontaa visuaalisin keinoin.
Oppilaille annettiin tehtäväksi kehittää mielikuvituksellinen tarina veneelle, jonka pohjalta he suunnittelivat symboleita ja kuvioita käyttäen omat kuosinsa. Kuoseista valmistettiin pahvinen painolaatta collagrafia-tekniikalla. Lopullinen vedos syntyi, kun oppilaat painoivat laatallaan kuvioita pohjille, joille he olivat tehneet erilaisia värikokeiluja. Näistä oppilaiden valmistamista vedoksista taitellut paperiveneet muodostavat yhdessä äänen ja valaistuksen kanssa esillä olevan installaatiokokonaisuuden.