Artist: Maya Ben David
Title: Popcorn Ceiling Maiden
Curated by: Christina Gigliotti
Screening: November 7 – 28, 2019
Duration: 2’27”
Popcorn Ceiling Maiden is an ode to the ubiquitous craggly stucco ceilings that might be recognizable to anyone who lived in the West in the 1980s-1990s. At some point it was decided that popcorn ceilings and walls were peak interior design, and thus made their ways into our homes, schools, hospitals, grocery stores and restaurants. As time has passed, popcorn ceilings and faux finishes have been chipped away at and replaced with more tasteful alternatives in our spaces, like exposed wooden beams and lots of dim light bulbs hanging from cables. In Popcorn Ceiling Maiden, the protagonist pleads with us to save this dying art form.
Maya Ben David (MBD) is a Toronto based video performance Jewish-Iranian Anthro Plane. Ben David creates worlds and characters that explore concepts such as anthropomorphism, cosplay and performative personas. Ben David’s characters origin stories are established via video performance and are performed on a ongoing basis through her online presence. Her characters inhabit alternate universes but also interact with each other and already established nostalgic universes such as Pokemon and Spider-Man. In addition to this, Ben David is also a character know as “MBD” who feuds with the many manifestations of herself and the art world. Most infamously, MBD is known for inciting online feuds with other artists such as Jon Rafman and Ajay Kurian.
