Focus Gallery: Afruz Amighi: Sounding Shell

In the sculptural installation _Sounding Shell_, Afruz Amighi assembles a cast of mythological characters drawn from religions and cultures around the world. The Mexica goddess Coyolxāuhqui is a key figure: decapitated by her brother, according to myth, her severed head became the moon. Amighi's sculptures draw on this story of destruction as a wellspring of transformation and possibility. Eyes, teeth, breasts, and claws—all carved in luminous alabaster—rest on the floor, as if the steel-framed sculptures that surround them were bodies in various states of disintegration. Reliquaries on view in the exhibition _Sacred Splendor_, on the museum's second floor, likewise hold sacred fragments, asserting that something broken can possess the same spiritual power as something whole. The title _Sounding Shell_ refers to the low roar heard while holding a curved shell to one's ear, a blend of sounds from the environment and those of the body. The heartbeat heard throughout the space underscores this sense of interconnectedness, causing objects and bodies to vibrate in unison.