A New Place To Hide is an immersive 2 channel projection mapping and sound piece overlaid acrylic on stretched thermal mylar panels (50 canvas, 10” x 8”). Each panel contains a silhouette of a plant species native to major geographical regions that refugees have left or migrated from. These regions include countries from Central America, South America, Africa, and the Middle East. The thermal mylar is the same material used by refugees and migrants during their travels as a layer of protection during harsh weather conditions. The imagery projected on the wall and panels is video footage various landscapes and natural environments, representing the journey of the migrant as well as the lands and bodies of nature one must traverse and overcome to survive. The accompanying soundscapes is a compilation of field recordings of various landscapes such as deserts, rainforests, and bodies of water.

Multimedia : Video projection, spray paint on wood, foam core, soundscapes, assorted sand and dirt from various border sites, found clothing articles and belongings, yucca flowers, seashells, candles, immersive text, barb wire, photographs, and other found objects.

*Installation view at The Baltimore Museum of Art (Baltimore, MD)

Esta Tierra Es Tu Tierra (This Land Is Your Land) is an ongoing, immersive multimedia installation focusing on the U.S.-Mexico border and its effects on human lives. In the winter of 2015 and the summer 2016, Baltimore-based artist Erick Antonio Benitez traveled along the entirety of the border that stretches from the Gulf of Mexico to the Pacific Ocean, visiting numerous sites including migrant shelters (both in the US and Mexico), Tent City Jail recently closed for its horrific human rights violations and various border landscapes. His poetic and sonic documentary captures interactions at Friendship Park, where residents of the United States and Mexico are permitted to meet face-to-face across a 100-foot, semi- transparent span of fencing. This work also includes on-site interviews with border agents, migrants, minute men, as well as footage of the different border sites along US and Mexico.

At the border, Benitez captured field recordings, photographs, video footage and collected sand, dirt, rocks, seashells, yucca flowers, and discarded personal belongings. He preserves and enshrines these objects within the installation as ritual offerings to those who have lost their lives on their journey to the United States.

***This work was installed at the Baltimore Museum of Art for the Sondheim Finalist Exhibition. This project was awarded the 2018 Walter and Janet Sondheim award juried by Lauren Cornell, Margo Norton, and Kameelah Janan Rasheed.

Where Pathways Meet is a collaborative immersive multimedia installation consisting of light and sound sculptures by Erick Antonio Benitez and Sutton Demlong. Visitors are invited to a whimsical Garden Maze that includes several rainbow spines and a series of planters, housing acrylic shaped plants that can be accessed from any direction. A rainbow spine portal is a sequence of wooden rectilinear sculptures with colorful inside edges. Each square form in the spine is interlinked through beams that attach to the next. The interior planes of the square frames are designed with glowing LED lights.

Many of the plants in the interactive garden are present in our lives as commodities, and rarely as a living things. The commodification of these plants allows us to experience their benefits regardless of geography. Often our only access to these plants is through a screen, processed goods, or a curated garden. 
Where Pathways Meet is a celebration of our experience with various flora from around the world and embraces the sometimes simulated aspects of those encounters.This project is an examination and a reflection on our relationship with the natural world and how it intersects the human made world. 

This work was commissioned and installed at Baltimore Light City Festival, November 2019 at Pierce Park located in Pier 5 at the Baltimore Inner Harbor.

Curatorial Statement: Foliaform, a group exhibition that explores humans’ relationship with plants. The work approaches the subject from multiple perspectives, presenting this exchange as exploitative, curated, synthetic, immersive or an attempt to tame or manicure something innately wild. The artists grapple with the intersections between human identity, culture, and the natural world, as well as the effects of rapid technological advancement on individuals. Many of the pieces comment on human want for contact with nature, and the contradicting desire to construct a “natural environment” to interact with on humans’ own terms. Behind the work exists the unseen close physical interaction between artist and material, which contributes to a feeling of intimacy with the viewer.

Hidden & Unseen
2019
Multimedia Installation : Projection mapping on suspended linocut printed fabric, sound, found tree log and branches, clay, leaves , gel screens, and theater assorted lights.
Dimension vary according to space
*Hidden and Unseen is collaborative installation derived from Plant•Sa•Tion, work created by Ariel C Foster and Erick Antonio Benitez

Drawing inspiration from the audio poem, The Bristol Project by Vito Acconci, this work examines a parallel connection of imagery and non-fictional worlds intersecting one another into abstractions and visual metaphors. The line, “Now it's the land itself here who is a body, a body of land, it's the water itself that's a body of water,” expresses the notion of imagery we understand outside of its common context. Like Acconci’s word play, the textile paintings found in this work are constantly reinterpreted and reimagined outside of it’s ordinary function. 

Through the use of camouflage textiles, floral embroidery imagery and thermal mylar blankets, A City of Magic Carpets opens a metaphysical dialogue to dissolve and reexamine our understanding of landscape. The way the material transcends past it’s psychological associations, gives new perspective on how one can interpret the concept of landscape outside of the common human experience.

*** Link to Poem by Vito Acconci
https://ubusound.memoryoftheworld.org/acconci_vito/Acconci-Vito_The-Bristol-Project_2001.mp3

A City of Magic Carpets is the first inaugural contemporary exhibition presented at the North and South Galleries of Baltimore City Hall in October 2018

The installation and performance of Eroica is composed of movement, sound performance and a visual installation made of video projections and found objects.

The performance element of Eroica is a call and response between the dancer and musician through a method of improvisation with a loose choreographed structure. The musician creates compositions with field recordings, acoustic and electronic instruments. The dancer's role includes dialogue, dance, and interaction with the visual installation. The visual installation includes a projection within the space of the performance to fabricate symbols and visual cues that amplifies the narrative of Eroica. These projections culminate images found in nature, city infrastructures and symbols. To complement the visual aesthetic, an installation of physical natural found objects is installed to enhance the ritual elements of the movements found in Eroica.