17 May – 13 June 2021

Open to the public:
11, 12, 13 June from 5:00 – 8:00pm

We at Marginal Utility are happy to welcome Brandon Straus as the fourth round participant in the 319 2nd floor Residency Program.

For his residency at Marginal Utility Brandon Straus is creating a multichannel video installation, Coconut Palace and a Bamboo Mansion. It is the result of long distance research and free association about the Philippines’ visual culture. Historical documents, souvenirs, and found footage are mined online and serve as artifacts in a study of real and imagined mythologies and folktales. The machete, coconuts, and invasive bamboo anchor the films and installation. In his project, he attempts to make sense of his second generation filipino-American identity, finding visual and cultural connections between Philadelphia and the Philippines, collaborating with sound artists and the filipino community in the process.

Brandon Straus is an interdisciplinary artist living and working in Philadelphia. His art practice questions the increasingly muddled relationships between the physical and digital worlds. Still life, art historical references, gay pop-culture, design, and software interfaces often appear in his work. Video, photography, illustration, and painting are his mediums of choice. He works at the Philadelphia Museum of Art with time-based-media installations and video.