Lorena Molina

slow burn on view at the Fine Arts Gallery-SFSU
Exhibition dates: February 21 – April 4, 2026

slow burn centers how BIPOC artists use slowness as a form of refusal and a way to reveal the systems of oppression that structure their lives. In a time marked by political acceleration and manufactured urgency, these artists disrupt dominant timelines and challenge extractive expectations of productivity and visibility. Their works unfold gradually, resist legibility, or remain unresolved, inviting viewers into alternative temporalities shaped by care, grief, intimacy, agency, and devotion.

Rather than treating time as neutral, the exhibition frames it as a political structure forged through histories of displacement, control, and erasure. It confronts colonial, carceral and extractive time, exposing the slow forms of violence that define everyday life. Slowness in this context acts as a counter-rhythm to the accelerations of capitalism, surveillance, and spectacle culture. In doing so, slow burn opens space to slow the body down, to listen, to grieve, to be intimate, and to advocate for opacity and temporal self-determination.

Participating artists: Mara Duvra, Tesora Garcia, Maria Gaspar, Tianzong Jiang, Ana Mendieta, Joshua Moreno, Elaine T. Nguyen.

Lorena Molina, Curator and SFSU Assistant Professor of Studio Art Practice

This exhibition is possible thanks to the support from Sharon Bliss and Kevin Chen, as well as the support from Kevin’s ART619 Exhibition Design class.

Works on the exhibition:

Ana Mendieta — Untitled (Blood Sign #2/Body Tracks), video, 1974 (Courtesy of Walker Art Center)

Maria Gaspar Title: Disappearance Jail (excerpt series) Hundreds of perforated Archival Inkjet prints on rice paper, 5 x 7, 2021-Ongoing

Tesora Garcia, Ecstatic Visions from Outer Space, Video, Running time: 04:55, 2024
Tesora’s Pink Light, Photography, 20x20, 2024
Tesora’s Third Eye, Photography, 20x20, 2024

Elaine Nguyen  Title: Ngoại ăn, Ngoại có sức khỏe,
Porcelain and cyanotype on canvas, 12'x12', 2024

Mara Duvra, [ what’s a condition and what’s a duration]. 2021

Tianzong Jiang, Eating a Bowl of Rice, Video, 2021

Joshua Moreno, Invisible Cities, 2026

Reviews and press:

https://www.roborantreview.com/reviews/nbspslow-burn-san-francisco-state-university

https://www.kqed.org/arts/13987177/slow-burn-san-francisco-state-university-fine-arts-gallery-review

https://www.sfexaminer.com/culture/visual-arts/guide-to-five-great-art-shows-in-san-francisco-this-spring/article_1ffec7e2-ac66-4cd6-8fbe-b23c245e0421.html