In this video, mixed-media artist Xaviera Simmons talks about her work and her striking new photo installation, Superunknown (Alive In The), currently on view in Greater New York, MoMA PS1‘s quinquennial showcase of works made in the past five years by artists and collectives living and working in the metropolitan New York area.

Xaviera Simmons. Superunknown (Alive In The). 2010. On view in the exhibition Greater New York at MoMA PS1. Photo: Matthew Septimus. Courtesy MoMA PS1

In her work Simmons investigates ideas of landscape, history, myth, and narrative mainly through photography, installation, sound, and performance. For Greater New York, she presents Superunknown (Alive In The) (2010), a wall-sized grid of over forty found photographs, appropriated from news sources and all depicting boatloads of migrants afloat in the open ocean. In this body of work Simmons is interested not only in the content of the images, but also in examining how the group of images functions as an archive or collection.