Tent Series: Lorena Molina and Sindhu Thirumalaisamy

Lorena Molina’s “La Tierra Recuerda” (The Land Remembers) Fall 2024
By Tracey Rhoades
Photographs by Gustavo Raskosky

The fifth round of commissions for the Moody Center’s Tent Series features the work of visual artist Lorena Molina and artist and filmmaker Sindhu Thirumalaisamy. Molina’s “La Tierra Recuerda” (The Land Remembers) is a depiction of lava fields in El Playon, where death squads in El Salvador disposed of bodies during the 1979–1992 civil war. Molina honors those who died by encouraging viewers to reflect on traumatic events and how those events affect generations and the land we inhabit. Thirumalaisamy’s video “provision” references tarps and other culturally significant materials with fleeting glimpses of the human body, continuing Thirumalaisamy’s investigation into implied narrative structures, untold stories and the passage of time. Filmed at Rice, the HD video includes students and staff and is on view from sunset to sunrise. Launched in 2020, the Tent Series invites Houston-based or connected artists to install temporary pieces on four provisional campus facilities. The current artworks will run from August 2024 through July 2025 on the south side of campus on Loop Road across from Herring Hall.