San Francisco’s art gallery KADIST recently unveiled “Open Bodies,” a series of public programming set to take place at various arts and cultural centers around the city. An experimental appeal to various body parts and sensory experiences, the works seek to examine collective practices and rituals following the COVID-19 pandemic.

I stopped by for the first public program of the series, “Open Ears,” which explores cultural artifacts through auditory perception. The exhibition was first displayed on Nov. 7 at The Lab, an event space found inside the historic San Francisco Labor Temple. Its venue was virtually empty apart from a singular docent sitting at a foldable table, the gatekeeper for the day. They directed me towards a recently excavated room in the back where the exhibit was displayed. Stepping into the space was like stumbling upon an alternate realm in which the body’s senses are heightened, amplifying senses and increasing vigilance. 

Though it centrally focuses on sound, “Open Ears” is a sensory overload. One is met with an eerie audio track blaring from speakers in every corner of the large room still partially under construction. A lone television screen is propped against a wall, displaying a distorted virtual museum tour. The video is overlaid with images of sculptures and paintings, with a single line of text at the bottom of the screen: “But history devoured everything.”

This is Asha Sheshadri’s “Portmanteau,” an auditory exploration of looted artifacts. In mimicking the emptiness of post-pandemic museums, Sheshadri encompasses the feeling of haunting reflection that characterizes “Open Ears.” Its rightful setting in the unfinished venue within the Lab is a clear deterrence from the constraints of a traditional gallery — which perhaps is exactly what Sheshadri set out to achieve. 

And how could one miss the giant man covered in plastic? Eyes are drawn to the middle of the room, where Michael Rakowitz’s “Behemoth II” lies. In its initial form, it appears to be an ambiguous pile of material. However, a violent whistling signals the sculpture’s inflation. Once erected, the inflatable “Behemoth II” takes on the shape of a statue wrapped in a black tarp. 

The form is inspired by the former Ulysses S. Grant statue in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park. With the sculpture’s intermittent rise and fall, it parallels the toppling of Grant’s statue by activists in 2020. The statue’s whirrs of inflation and deflation, in tandem with the distorted audio of “Portmanteau,” ensues a symphony of sonic overstimulation that echoes off the walls of the barebones space. The eerie emptiness in Sheshadri’s virtual museum tour and the Lab’s setting itself is interrupted by chaos.  

Despite the general sense of discomfort, “Open Ears” is an exhibition that conveys a profoundly distinct message — if one takes the time to truly listen. Sheshadri and Rakowitz’s utilization of sound does not invoke contemplativeness, but rather resilience. Here, sound is a medium for spreading ideas that challenge and dismantle previous notions of collective history. It encourages discourse and discussion, particularly around how communities have taken collective action towards cultural artifacts in pandemic contexts. 

Nov. 21-23 will be the last time for the public to experience the “Open Ears” exhibition. But fear not, for this is the first of several different public programs taking place around San Francisco. In the coming months, KADIST will continue the “Open Bodies” series with programs like “Open Arms” and “Open Tongue,” further engaging with bodily organs, modes of perception and their relation to art and culture in the San Francisco community. 

The series is part of a larger exhibition at KADIST entitled “Makeshift Memorials, Small Revolutions,” which similarly houses artistic depictions of community and collectivity from the years 2020-24. Located at their gallery in the heart of the Mission, the exhibition is a moving collection of multimedia pieces that explores issues of race, labor, and politics around the world. If one wishes to view the larger exhibition “Makeshift Memorials, Small Revolutions,” it will be on view at KADIST San Francisco until Feb. 15, 2025.