On Water, Genetic Memory, and Containment: A conversation with Amber Toplisek

By SASHA FISHMAN October 17, 2024

https://www.mimogallery.net/ 

https://www.ambertoplisek.com/#1 

Amber Toplisek is an interdisciplinary artist exploring the network of images that reside within the body, functioning as an imperceptible alchemy that influences and guides our lives. Amber’s work engages with different methods of obfuscation and utilizes both kinetic and still interventions in order to extend an encounter with a photographic image. 

In preparation for her solo exhibition at mimo in Brooklyn, I spoke with Amber about the new body of work she will be exhibiting, the intricacies of working with water, and how the materiality of glass and photographs relate to her experience becoming a mother reflecting on generational memory. Amber’s exhibition, in two opens October 18, and will be on view through November 17. 

Testing the siphon fountain system

SF

I am really drawn to the similarities and crossover between the ways that we think and work with materials. There's so many difficulties, but also exciting moments that come from working with water, and I'm curious about how your fountain work came to be, and if you've done anything like that before.

AT

I've always wanted to work with water, and always pictured making an actual fountain, there's been allusions to physical fountains in some of my pieces. I've been thinking and photographing them in Florida, especially the stereotypical ones. I was developing film at this time, and using this water tank to wash the photographs. I’m watching the water fill up in the tank, and then it would just empty out. It felt so much like a breath. I was thinking, how can I put an image inside and kind of watch it slowly appear and then fade, fade back down to the bottom? 

SF  

Yeah, you have to start to think about how fluids move. Sometimes it is intuitive, but it also defies your expectations. 

AT

Totally, water has a mind of its own. I ran into a lot of problems trying to just make it functional. My other work, especially my glass works, are very process based, you have to follow each step, and it's very systematic. But you have to move your body to wrestle with the fountain, to get the tubes to work, while water flow has its own mind. What I love about the photo tank piece is that the water wants to follow itself. If the tank is just a little bit off balance, the water will flow out of the top. It has to be directly leveled for it to siphon and perform.

Detail of the fountain siphon

SF  

I think the water path kind of has to do with the equilibrium of air and gravity, and the pressure of that pushing against itself. Sounds like you're going back to an origin point. Do you feel like this fountain is a kind of manifestation of what is happening inside of your body during pregnancy? 

AT   

I was born in Florida, but we moved away when I was three, then I moved back for grad school. I would drive past a lot of fountains in Florida. I was taken by the sounds of the ponds, but there was always this inaccessibility to them since there was no sidewalk. The sound of the fountains were competing with the sound of cars passing by, so there was always this conflict. The constant flow of energy, labor, and mechanical functioning that I'm not even consciously aware of. I sandblasted pieces of Plexi and put them in the photo tank, to act as a barrier to seeing the image inside. There's a hint of something moving, which is how in my own body there was like a sign that things were changing, but you couldn't really see it.

SF 

It's interesting to hear about the growth inside of you, and everything being contained in that tank. Rather than this explosion of water that's bursting and moving out, there is a water flow that relates to you. I'm sure you had to find particular angles for the tubes, a certain height for that siphon, and then curve it the right way. All the while, your body naturally performs that.

Tubing detail

AT

I totally think about containment and the body. There's so much going on within us that's difficult to replicate mechanically, so it needs a lot of care and attention. There are different problems each time I set the fountain up, I'm constantly learning from it, similar to my pregnancy. I had a C-section, so I was totally lucid. I couldn't feel anything from my waist down, but I was very awake. Even though I didn't feel that pain, my body still remembers it. It was a really strange experience of literally being cut open and not feeling it as pain. I think our body can hold on to that feeling, even if our brains can't.

SF  

I wanted to also talk about your photographs. Regarding the images that you've been capturing and putting onto the glass pieces, are those memories? They're very colorful and dreamy, but also a bit melancholic. 

AT 

Most images are stills from videos I shot in New York when I was pregnant last year. I have this old video camera camcorder that I used to document my time walking around the streets. I was thinking about generations and familial relationships on my maternal side since my mother’s parents are from New York. A lot of the stills are outtakes of using the super zoom function. It would get really close to certain objects, to the point where I couldn't even piece together what I was actually recording. I like that fissure of looking back and it's a new experience of watching it versus recording it. 

SF

I'm curious about how you see transparency in your practice, especially with glass and water. 

AT   

I'm really drawn to transparency, I'm fascinated by the physical properties of glass and I learned recently that it's actually a super cooled liquid, so it's related to water in that way. I'm also drawn to glass because it can make photos feel more tangible. Putting them on glass it's also an early way that photographs were captured onto, like glass plate negatives. There's also a time jump into the way we consume images today, primarily through our phone screens. That constant touching and feeling on the surface of our phones, so flat, but also visceral. 

SF   

Tell me more about the photo that's floating in the fountain.

AT   

It's changed a few times. I think about photographs being really fluid, moving and changing a lot. Every time I revisit one, it's different from the first time I saw it. I chose a photograph of my maternal grandmother when she's pregnant with my mom. It never becomes completely visible in the tank, even when it's fully at the surface. It also replicates the form of the glass pieces, when it comes up, it's sort of blurry, and almost looks like there's a hole at the center, which is actually the figure of my grandmother. I think a lot about lineage. My mother’s family is Jewish, and in this matriarchal tradition, it's passed through the women. I think of my grandmother, my mother, me, and now my daughter—continuing that succession.

SF

Did you keep the placenta?

AT

No, I regret not keeping it, but I have this photograph of it and it's really crazy to look at. I look at it a lot. I think it's the only temporary organ the human body can grow. That picture of my grandmother, pregnant with my mom, reminds me of this idea that all the eggs you have are inside you from the time you're born. So while I'm seeing a picture of my grandmother, it's also my mom, and then I'm in there, and then my daughter's also inside.

SF

It makes me think about fate and how so many are freezing their eggs now. These eggs are chosen to be frozen—maybe they hold memories of what they've been through. I wonder if trauma attaches to them during that preconscious process?

AT  

It's sort of innate and it's probably attached to who you are as a person. Similarly to my early memories from Florida, even though I don't have any physical memory, they have become part of myself. When I gave birth there was a curtain draped above my stomach, so you can't see what's going on. I remember the first time I met her; the doctors lowering this plastic translucent curtain and then seeing her for the first time was pretty crazy, finally able to visualize her.

A lot of it felt like I was being born. She was breached inside me, that means she was feet first, and the same thing that happened with me in my mother. In a way, it triggered some really early memories of myself being born. WM