Midi Onodera – TOO MUCH TIME ON MY HANDS playtime | inside my head

TOO MUCH TIME ON MY HANDS | playtime | inside my head encompasses two of Midi Onodera’s newest ongoing projects. The exhibit focuses on the artist’s contemplation of time during the pandemic lockdown and social upheaval, a period in which she finds herself simultaneously looking outward and inward, working with others and working alone. 

playtime refers to Onodera’s collaborative online project EXC-19, an undertaking based on the Surrealist parlour game known as “The Exquisite Corpse”. Over 100 artists, cultural workers and students have participated in this project, generating over 60 videos on exc-19.com. Inside my head is Onodera’s series of sculptural video containers inspired by daguerreotypes and the obsession with mobile phones. Made of plaster, pigment and wax, these “miniature video works encased in cloud-filled sky vessels” speak to the complicated relationship between childhood memories, youthful impressions and implicit biases. 

Together, the works in this exhibit call attention to the shifting parameters for community-building and self-reflection in our contemporary moment. In Onodera’s words, “TOO MUCH TIME ON MY HANDS is a reflection of our dual nature: the outward public flaunting of who we project to the world and the concealed part of who we are, a complex, contradictory self.”