Organized by Yasmeen M. Siddiqui, Associate Curator, Storefront 

Ganjian, Holleman, and Sauvaitre use the languages of sculpture, installation, and landscape photography to represent points of intersection, where landscapes (urban and rural) and nomadic architctures meet. Ganjian builds utopian cities on jewel case-like velvet pedestals and carpets. Ganjian ‘s carpets are inspired by icons from her childhood, the urban landscape surrounding her studio in Long Island City, and American popular culture. Holleman builds a living park within a generic trailer. For Trailer Park, Holleman appropriates forms of public architecture and science to reveal and interrogate their ideal promises. She responds to investigations into 1960s utopian and research architecture, and utilitarian/utopian models, and makes a statement about current cultural conditions. Sauvaitre ‘s landscape photography represents portable architectures of the Bedouins in Wadi Rum (Jordan), the same Bedouins across the border in the Negev (Israel), the marginal trailer “snow birds” of Slab City (USA) and trailers found in the Catskills (USA), as well as the last gypsies of Camargue (France). Nomadic versus sedentary – this relationship is ancient, and yet remains relevant. PORTABLE proposes that we reconsider the term nomad, and how it operates in contemporary society. 

Biographies of the Artists 

LINDA GANJIAN, born in Brighton, Massachusetts in 1970, and raised in the suburbs of Boston, received her B.A. (with a major in painting) from Bard College in 1992 and her M.F.A. from Hunter College CUNY in 1998. 

Her work has been exhibited in NYC, New Jersey, the Netherlands, Scotland and Armenia. Some highlights include: the Brooklyn Museum of Art (“Open House: Working in Brooklyn” 2004), Stedelijk museum de Lakenhal in Leiden, the Netherlands (2001), eyewash@Fishtank Gallery (“Four-Squared” 2003), Schroeder-Romero gallery (“Somewhere Outside It” 2005), Annina Nosei Gallery (“Everland” 2005), Stefan Stux gallery (“Irrational Exuberance” 2004), Art in General (“Between the Acts” 1997), PS122 (“Imaginary Friends” 1998), the Rotunda Gallery (“Cities and Desire” 2001), and Free Gallery, Glasglow, Scotland (“Majority Rules, Part I and II”, 2002). She has received grants from the Pollack-Krasner Foundation (2005); Artslink (2001); the ARPA foundation (2001); the Gunk Foundation (February 2002) for the No Live Girls project, a fellowship to Hall Farm Center (2005), Millay Colony (2004), and Vermont Studio Center (2003). She recently had her first one-person show in New York at eyewash@Gallery Boreas in Williamsburg (March 2006). 

KIM HOLLEMAN, born in Tampa, Florida in 1973 and raised in the suburban area of Palm Beach Gardens, attended The Cooper Union for The Advancement of Science and Art in New York and The Rietveld Academie in Amsterdam, Holland. 

Her work has been exhibited in both print form and in solo and group exhibitions in New York, The Netherlands, and in Colorado at The Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art for the show entitled, A Sense of Place: Work that Examines Changing Concepts of Place, Borders and Nationalism on a Global Scale (2004), and currently at The Kohler Arts Center in Wisconsin in the show entitled, Utopia (2006). Her solo show, The Artificial Homemaker at The Rietveld Pavilion (1996), an all-glass show space in Amsterdam, was filmed for the documentary De Cultuurshok: Foreign Artists in Amsterdam (1996) that aired on Dutch National Television in Holland. Other highlights include: Or Do They Wear You?, a three window installation critiquing fashion at Barneys NY Madison Avenue (1998), a four-page, gatefold photographic layout of commissioned work in Time Magazine (September, 2001), Depicting Design at The Brooklyn Arts Council (2006), inclusion in the premier edition of Artworld Digest, A Curated Printed Exhibition of 99 International Artists, published in NY (2006), and in the international architecture quarterly, Mark3: Another View (2006). 

MARIE P. SAUVAITRE, born in France in 1971, graduated with an M.F.A. in Photography, from the New York School of Visual Arts in 2005. 

Her work has been exhibited at the Nelson Gallery (Davis California, 2006), the Exit Art Biennial (New York, 2005), the Visual Arts Gallery (New York, 2005) and prior group shows in France and Jordan. She was selected for the Santa Fe Portfolio Review (New Mexico, 2006) and as a finalist for the International Color Awards (Fine Arts Category, 2006). She has had photographs published in Korean Photography (April, 2005), Il Corriere della Sera (January, 2004), Time Out New York (May, 2003). Academic endeavors include teaching as an adjunct professor in Graduate Photography at the School of Visual Arts and upcoming photography workshop projects with Middle Eastern children.