Artifact Title: Diviner/Watcher

Medium: Sculpture in bronze, volcanic rock & marble

Sculptor: Lina Iris Viktor

Title of Sculpture: Diviner I/The Watcher

Year: 2021-22

Image credit: Photo by Laura Veschi. Used courtesy of Lina Iris Viktor

TERA Curator: Alejandro Escalante

Diviner/Watcher

Made partially of volcanic rock, materia prima, as Viktor says, “Diviner I/The Watcher” invites us to communicate with a primordial substance that is also shaped by the artist. Viktor writes that she authors “an idiosyncratic mythology that threads through deep time, knitting together a diasporic past with an expansive present in order to divine future imaginaries.” In Diviner, the concave bronze face looks out, crudely reproducing the viewer’s face on its rocky surface. As we watch it, so does the Diviner watch us. What do these ancient substances see? And in their face, what might we see?