Pelenakeke Brown in ‘Technologies of Relation’ at MASS MoCA

Responding to the rapidly advancing technologies that are shaping our daily lives and social fabric, the artists in Technologies of Relation examine how we relate to each other, to our devices, and to our future.

These creators see the complexity of our relationships to the digital, avoiding the binary views that frame technology as good or bad, as tool or monster. They embrace how technology can connect us, but also acknowledge how algorithms and A.I. have the tendency to oppress and erase marginalized communities. Artists have been key to identifying the colonialist logic, racism, and violence embedded in and produced by corporate-developed technologies and datasets. Just as crucial as understanding these problematics, this exhibition offers visions of a technological future that is inclusive and liberatory.

Exhibiting artists are: Morehshin Allahyari; Pelenakeke Brown; Taeyoon Choi; Neema Githere; Mashinka Firunts Hakopian with Dahlia Elsayed, Andrew Demirjian, and Danny Snelson; Kite; Lauren Lee McCarthy; Analia Saban; and Roopa Vasudevan.

Working across mediums, addressing technology both with its own tools and through analog means, many of these artists — skilled technologists — choose simpler materials to give shape to their ideas. Their works demystify technology, reminding us that it is neither neutral nor authoritative, or beyond our scope of influence. They bring it closer by relating emerging technologies to the ancient arts of weaving, tattooing, and divination. These artists look to ancestral traditions as models for making technology more accessible, and for ways of imagining (or remembering) how we can employ more ethics and care in the technological sphere.

To find more exhibitions around the world by New Zealand artists, visit ArtNow.NZ

Image: Detail of Pelanakeke Brown, Reverb (2025-2026), at Technologies of Relation on view at MASS MoCA. Photo: Kaelan Burkett.