ART 36 MONTEREY COUNTY WEEKLY DECEMBER 11-17, 2025 www.montereycountynow.com Visiting the space where Hanif Wondir and Domini Anne are building their exhibit in advance of Monterey Museum of Art’s annual interactive Iluminado experience is fascinating, part art studio and part construction scene. The floors are covered with cutouts and plastic print, future art walls are half-covered, and at this stage it’s all about the idea mapped out in the artists’ minds; they talk about what will be with shining eyes, moving the pieces around, picking up isolated elements from the floor, adjusting projectors and testing lights. For the final effect—requested by the museum as an immersive, handson artistic experience based on MMA’s artist-in-residence Joe Ramos’ photography—one had to wait for the exhibit to be completed. Those who participated in the Iluminado opening on Friday, Dec. 5 or during the opening weekend were the first to know what this year’s presentation is all about. If you were not one of them, you have until Jan. 18 to go and immerse yourself. “It’s all about, ‘What if?’” explains MMA’s executive director, Corey Madden. “We presented Joe Ramos’ photography last year as a traditional exhibit. But we also have those young artists working for us, like Hanif. We wanted to see what happens if we make two generations collaborate.” Ramos, who hails from Soledad and spent decades photographing the Central Valley and the Central Coast region, is touring the Wondir-Anne installation on the opening evening, too— exploring as much as every member of the audience. He says that if not for a visit to the young artists’ studio the previous week, he would have been completely surprised. Ramos’ photos are cast onto walls, illuminated and stimulated, be it by air or a human touch. The installation is all about interaction, immersion, multimedia and new media paying respect to the old. One of the walls is called a wind wall, another is a reflection wall. The wind wall is shimmering with movement, like a big ocean, ever-changing the atmosphere of the landscape it shows. It’s a great representation of the strong winds the Salinas Valley experiences, Ramos says. Next to it, visitors can scan a QR code that takes them to a video file with Ramos talking about his memories growing up around such landscapes. The reflection wall has two surfaces of Ramos’ works; the second screen lurks from behind, signaling the presence of yet another world behind the surface. On the first plane, viewers can see themselves—hands and silhouettes and people around them. The whole community becomes part of the big spectacle of shadows. You can manipulate the image, adding your own elements, with paper cut-outs of a carriage, a tractor or a locomotive, and the art is moving for you. “We call this a shadow box,” Wondir says about what essentially looks like a big, white rectangular table. “We’ve mounted a 4K camera down here that will capture this entire surface—and that’s connected to a projector that’s projecting all of that on a massive wall.” One of the inspirations for Wondir and Anne was the work of shadows and reflections at the James Turrell Light Space outside the deYoung Museum in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park. “We went there twice to do research,” Anne says. “There are no actual right angles in the entire building. It’s all about how the light works. If you’re walking through, you’ll see the shadows and they kind of make these angles on the floor.” But there are more elements at play. The exhibits include a vintage photo booth, encouraging visitors to take a picture and use one of the two prints to contribute to yet another wall: a big collage documenting the presence of community members. The other print is for you to keep and remember. When the wall fills up, the artists will put a transparent acrylic layer over it to create a texture-rich gigantic piece that combines Ramos’ photo with the faces of the community. Ramos is known not only for his black-and-white photography, but also for his botanical series, very different in vibe. The abundance of beautiful flowers and plants around farm labor camps near the small town of Soledad where he grew up influenced him greatly; this aspect of his work is done in color. Wondir and Anne printed out some of it on large adhesive photo paper and then in plastic, creating sculptural elements mounted next to the entrance. Botanicals also inspired a bench one can find in the corner by the photo booth. It started out as an old coffee table picked from a dump. In addition to a surface made of a Ramos image, the round edges of the bench are inspired by Gaudi’s ergonomic, nature-inspired shapes in furniture, providing a round edge for the natural shape of the knees. Wondir is a multimedia artist responsible for some of the best murals in Monterey County; he is also a musician and DJ. Anne is a body artist, a dancer and a fitness expert. The two have been working together for years, often meeting in the visual arts territory of their multimedia collaborations, incorporating sound and light and movement. Ramos spent four decades pursuing photography that highlights the people and the beauty of our region. Currently based in San Francisco, he has deep roots in South County. This year’s Iluminado experience builds a bridge not only between traditional and new media, but also between generations of local artists. Iluminado is on display until Jan. 18 at Monterey Museum of Art, 559 Pacific St., Monterey. Free admission through December. Open 11am-5pm Thursday-Sunday, plus special events during the exhibit. (831) 372-5477, montereyart.org. Fully Immersed An interactive experience, Iluminado at Monterey Museum of Art, manipulates and transforms images. By Agata Popęda “It’s all about, ‘What if?’” Above: Left to right, artists Hanif Wondir, Joe Ramos and Domini Anne stand over a light table they refer to as a shadow box. Below: Visitors to Iluminado view the wind wall. DANIEL DREIFUSS DANIEL DREIFUSS
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