IN THE KINGSTON PROJECT SPACE

Chantal Zakari: Cogent Message

February 27-March 31, 2019
Opening Reception: Friday, March 1, 2019, 5:00-8:00 pm

Chantal Zakari
Cogent Message, plexiglass logo, 2018.
Chantal Zakari
Mid-Continent College, 5 x 7 postcard, 2019.
Chantal Zakari
Imploding Building, 5 x 7 postcard, 2019.
Chantal Zakari
Cogent Message, postcards, 2019.
Chantal Zakari
Cogent Message, photobook, pages 38-39, 2018.

Artist Page
Press Release
Hagman, Sarah. "Screen Shots: Must See This Spring." The Improper Bostonian, February 22, 2019.
Tang, Ruijingya. "Chantal Zakari's 'Cogent Message' deconstructs institutional failings." The Tufts Daily, March 14, 2019.

Cogent Message, Chantal Zakari's new work, hails from the future with nostalgic postcards of defunct colleges. Through the use of a rough halftone pattern the images of a bygone era blur and disintegrate into painterly abstraction. This collection of postcards includes stories about Alliance College, now a state prison, Virginia Intermont College whose campus has been bought by a Chinese university, and Mt. Ida College, embroiled in a feud about how public funds should be spent. "Cogent Message" is also the title of an encyclopedic photobook in the show, where idyllic images retrieved from schools' marketing campaigns emerge from the white background of corporate letterheads. Interspersed with school logos we see part time faculty who barely make ends meet, students starting life in debt and staff suddenly finding themselves unemployed.