From the Artist - Rylin Becenti:
“The Glittering World” is a contemporary installation that speaks to the physical aspects of life—bio matter being this idea that we can only see certain things with light, a microscope, or what the human eye is unable to see, whereas dark matter, equates to the metaphysical. In sync with these ideas lies the spirituality and belief that we are our only enemy, our ego/greed, and the subconscious. As humankind we often worry that our world is becoming overpopulated but we fail to remember the elements which we rely on, creating a hierarchy and moral authority over beings who were once considered equal relatives to us, the plants, the animals, the water, the land, the sky, nihi k’é (our family).  As big corporations continue to extract minerals from the ground, pollute most of the atmosphere, destruct the world’s massive forests and contaminate most of the ocean, our means of harmonious living gradually shed like time in an hourglass. The agency that non-human relatives once had is a history of the genocide and assimilation of Native people. Being able to see your reflection makes you a part of the piece and restores a position or societal function that has been taken from you and a people. On a molecular level, minerals have properties to be toxic or healing but the overall message here is recognition of biodiversity and space. How does the biodiversity within soil strengthen or weaken a space and how do you see your contribution to the world aside from White Supremacy?

About Rylin Becenti:
Rylin Becenti is a multi-disciplinary artist based out of the Navajo Nation; of the Diné she is Táchii’nii born for Tábąąhá, her maternal grandparents are Tó’aheedlííníí and paternal grandparents Tsénjíkíní. Raised in the low-income communities of Phoenix, Arizona her first exposure to art was through graffiti culture, starting as what is known to be a “writer” then maturing to murals with site-specific locations. She studied at the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, New Mexico with concentrations in Environmental Sculpture, Painting, Printmaking and Indigenous Studies. Outside of her practice she is among a collective of Indigenous Feminists at the K’é Infoshop in Window Rock, Arizona a space that aims to fight against and bring awareness to modern day monsters such as heteropatriarchy, colonialism, racism and capitalism. Her work conceptually addresses lateral oppression highlighting domestic violence partaking in Indigenous communities while defying the boundaries of contemporary art. Using shock value in means to creating conversation about problems and solutions in a minimal design approach and found object reuse. For the 2018-2019 school year she was the teaching artist at Albuquerque’s Working Classroom and lead a curriculum based on land body sovereignty.