‘Softer Than Silk’ Opening Reception

You are invited to attend the opening reception of “the walls are softer than the silk” featuring the work of Bonnie McEachren and Bobby Junger, curated by Kelly Chen, this Friday (12/6) from 6pm to 8pm at HACkS in the 5th floor of the West Virginia Building.

In the walls are softer than the silk, Bonnie McEachren and Bobby Junger interrogate the American emotion industry that separates Cuteness products from their industrial processes, collapsing the walls between the construction zone vs. in the World, in the machine vs. the product, internalized feelings vs. affective architecture. The feeling and power of Cuteness permeates the materials of industry that are used in their objects, to reflect the products of the emotional industries that are present in the American landscape. These objects invert each other to disclose the industrialization of the Cuteness and the emotional quality of industrial material. They address “feeling” in externalized, materialized, and produced measures.

Bobby Junger (they/them) is a nonbinary multidisciplinary artist and organizer based in Philadelphia, PA. They were awarded a Bachelors of Fine Arts with a focus in video and creative writing at the Kansas City Art Institute in 2020. Their work metabolizes their personal experience through sculpture, video, and music. In 2024, they were an artist in residence at ORI Berlin, where they held a solo show of wearable sculpture.
IG: @1singlespecialmoment

Bonnie McEachren is a sculptor based in Huntington, WV. She holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Ceramics from the Kansas City Art Institute. Her work considers the overlooked language of cuteness and southern kitsch, reinterpreting vernacular symbols like hearts and bows to convey hope, despair, rage. She recently completed a residency at the Center for Metal Arts in Johnstown, PA, creating a body of work that combines steel and ceramic sculptural components.
IG: @bonniemceachren

Kelly Chen is a researcher, poet, and memory worker based in Philadelphia, PA. She curates experimental music events, site specific installations, and exhibitions at the Firehouse Collective in Worcester, MA. She studied Media Arts and Data Science at Northeastern University, continuing studies at the School for Poetic Computation. Her current interests are in critical technology, criminality, American craft, and early moving image.