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Artist Builds 18 Upside Down Rooms into a Gallery's Ceiling [Exclusive]

In a selection of exclusive photos shot by Samara Golden, see 'A Trap in a Soft Division' through the artist's eyes.
Samara Golden, A Trap in Soft Division, Detail of installation, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 2016, Courtesy the artist and Night Gallery, Los Angeles. 

Samara Golden turns reality on its head in A Trap in a Soft Division, her largest-ever commissioned work at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (YBCA). Installed in the YBCA gallery’s 18 ceiling skylights are 18 inverted rooms. The surreal spaces look lived-in, cluttered with half-folded clothes, half-eaten meals, and half-emptied purses, casting the illusion that someone left these upside down dwellings only seconds before. In fact, Golden describes the experience of A Trap in a Soft Division in the show's press release as “almost like being able to see into someone’s mind, or being able to see yourself separate from yourself in a dream."

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This separation is something unique to this show, especially in contrast to such exaggeratedly immersive environments as her 2015 MoMA PS1 installation, The Flat Side of the Knife. "It’s a departure from my past work in that the viewer is more distant, they see the work as almost a mirage separate from themselves,” says Golden. “Ultimately it’s more about disconnection, and distant far away feelings.” Like her previous work, however, A Trap in a Soft Division brings the viewer into the “sixth dimension—a place where the future, present, and past exist simultaneously,” describes the press release. The effect is unsettling. As Golden says, these are places “that couldn’t exist on earth.” As a result, viewers become voyeurs into alien environments as they look up at the rooms from below, or examine their details in the large mirrors on the gallery’s floor.

Below, see the warped perspectives of A Trap in a Soft Division through the artist's own eyes, in an selection of shots captured by Golden herself, exclusive to The Creators Project.

Samara Golden, A Trap in Soft Division, Detail of installation, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 2016, Courtesy the artist and Night Gallery, Los Angeles. 

Samara Golden, A Trap in Soft Division, Detail of installation, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 2016, Courtesy the artist and Night Gallery, Los Angeles. 

Samara Golden, A Trap in Soft Division, Detail of installation, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 2016, Courtesy the artist and Night Gallery, Los Angeles. 

Samara Golden, A Trap in Soft Division, Detail of installation, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 2016, Courtesy the artist and Night Gallery, Los Angeles. 

Samara Golden, A Trap in Soft Division, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 2016, Courtesy the artist and Night Gallery, Los Angeles. 

Samara Golden, A Trap in Soft Division, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 2016, Courtesy the artist and Night Gallery, Los Angeles. 

A Trap in a Soft Division is on show at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts from now until May 29, 2016. Find out about the show on the YBCA’s website and visit Golden’s website for more of her works.

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