Joe Hedges and Jiemei Lin

A Curious Inventory and The Experimentalist are two surrealist short films by Washington state artists and partners Joe Hedges and Jiemei Lin.

The characters in the videos are a collector with a filing cabinet for a head and an individual in a white coat conducting experiments in a laboratory. Hedges plays the collector and Lin plays the experimenter. Although the collector collects many objects, and the experimenter conducts many experiments, neither film truly resolves. Rather, moments are suspended, and searching does not result in meaningful epistemes. By using the visual language of the archive and of science, but eschewing scientific rationality in favor of aesthetics, these videos explore contemporary questions regarding human relationships to objects, technology, science, the natural world and truth itself.

About the Artist

Joe Hedges are Jiemei Lin are interdisciplinary artists working in Washington State. Hedges was born in Ohio and Lin was born in Hangzhou, China. Hedges’ creative activity includes painting, digital imaging, installation, music and video. His projects often explore the links between science and art through the visual language of the experiment and the archive, or deal with the iconography, sounds or geological features of specific places. Lin’s works frequently take on themes of individual and cultural identity with a keen eye for design and color. Hedges and Lin have exhibited nationally and internationally, together and individually.