“A Dream of Armageddon” is a multimedia installation that explores potential apocalyptic disasters. The exhibition serves as both a warning for the future and also a mirror of our current socio-political landscape.  

The title of the work comes from H.G. Wells’ 1901 novel of the same name and the imagery featured is a tapestry of model homes suspended in isolation. What we see is just the shadow of the homes captured onto photographic paper and stripped of their context, these houses become symbols of home – the very essence of human existence. Amidst this isolation, the gallery space pulsates with disjointed housescapes and interwoven light bulbs, casting an eerie glow upon the frames. The juxtaposition of darkness and fleeting illumination encapsulates the fragile balance between existence and obliteration. 

“A Dream of Armageddon” presents a fleeting fantasy that teeters on the edge of potential reality that we may be creeping ever forward towards. The question then becomes not “What will the end look like?” but rather “What can we do to not arrive there?”

About the Artist

Kei Ito is an interdisciplinary artist working primarily with photographic media, installation, and sculpture. Ito’s work addresses issues of deep intergenerational loss and connections as he explores the materiality and experimental processes of photography and artifacts. Ito’s work, fundamentally rooted in the trauma and legacy passed down from his late grandfather – a survivor of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, meditates on the complexity of his identity and heritage through examining the past, current trajectories, and visualizing the invisible such as radiation, memory and life/death. 

By excavating and uncovering hidden histories connected to his own, Ito utilizes his generational past to use as a case study for contemporary and future events. Many of Ito’s artworks transform both art and non-art spaces into temporal monuments that became platforms for the audience to explore social issues and the memorials dedicated to the losses suffered from the consequences of those issues. Within these intertwined pasts, Ito shines a light on power and its relationship to larger global issues that often led to and result in both war and peace alike.  

Ito’s work can be read about in reviews and articles published by the Washington Post Magazine, Hyperallergic, BBC Culture & Art, BmoreArt, ArtMaze Magazine, ESSE Magazine and various newspapers worldwide. Ito’s works are included in institutional collections such as the Museum of Contemporary Photography (Chicago, IL), the Norton Museum of Art (West Palm Beach, FL), the Gregory Allicar Museum of Art(Fort Collins, CO), En Foco (NYC, NY), and the Eskenazi Museum of Art (Bloomington, IN). 

Upcoming and ongoing exhibitions include solo exhibitions at: the Hilliard Art Museum, Lafayette, LA (August 2023); and the Georgia Museum of Art, Athens, GA (February 2024).