When Honey Tastes Like Metal: Screening and Conversation

A child learns to read against the backdrop of war. An infant coos. A porpoise dies. Letters are written.

When Honey Tastes Like Metal brings together a selection of video works by Mona Hatoum, Tanika Williams, Patty Chang, and Vanessa Gravenor, framed by and expanding upon Shasha Dothan’s solo exhibition at A.I.R. Gallery, P is for Pomegranates, G is for Grenade, L is for Love. Within the exhibition, Dothan’s experience as the mother of a three-year-old grounds her ongoing consideration of violence and desensitization.

Here, the artists approach related concerns from distinct vantage points, engaging ancestry, exile, anthropomorphism, and wartime propaganda. Across the works, a central question emerges: what conditions shape our capacity for empathy and love—or its absence?

Please join us for a talkback with several of the presenting artists and Natalia Nakazawa, founder of the Arts Parents group. The conversation is moderated by exhibition curator Jesse Bandler Firestone.

Guests…