SUNY Oswego’s current Artist-in-Residence, Dahlia Bloomstone, is exploring worker exploitation and other themes in her exhibit “Unless the Outcome is the Income.”
The exhibit is open from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Tuesdays through Saturdays, Nov. 4 to Dec. 6, in Hewitt Hall’s Whitebox Gallery, Room 30, except during Thanksgiving Break.
In addition, Bloomstone will host two workshops titled “Pandemics Roblox” in the screening room of Hewitt Hall, Room 27 –- from 5 to 6 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 18, and 2 to 3 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 6.
Bloomstone is an American/Puerto Rican artist from Arizona with a master of Fine Arts from Hunter College. Her work explores themes of a contemporary space with animations, videos, games and code.
Her Oswego residency for the fall semester involves teaching an experimental games course within the Department of Art and Design, which explores how video games and art have intersected.
Bloomstone was inspired by self-taught artist Wong Ping from Hong Kong. Ping animates “kind of deeply not digestible stories” in bright and cute aesthetics, something reflected in Bloomstone’s work. “I always start the semester with Wong Ping,” Bloomstone said.
Noting that the Museum of Modern Art currently has a collection of about 14 video games, Bloomstone said that the form has yet to reach wider acceptance as an art form: “They don't have too many in their collection compared to other mediums, but the classes that I teach sort of build on this history of showing video game art and animated art like this.”
During grad school, Bloomstone was thinking of different aesthetics in conjunction with patriarchy.
Cuteness and dumbness are one of the aesthetics the patriarchy leans into, Bloomstone said. “I was trying to think of ways that I could tell certain stories from my own experiences and from my community's experiences that could be fed to audiences in a digestible way that wouldn't make people turn away.”
Bloomstone said that her identity was tied to working during her years as an undergraduate and in graduate school.
“Economic survival and longevity was the goal,” Bloomstone said. “So I just wanted to start making art about labor as a coping mechanism, as a form of sabotage, because while you're at work, you could pretend you're making art.”
Bloomstone’s exhibit “Unless the Outcome is Income” has an interactive Roblox game available to play at the exhibit. The game was recently rated 17+ on Roblox for romantic themes and sensitive issues.
“I'm always thinking about these content guidelines in these moderations,” Bloomstone said. “So this game is working within those content restrictions as all my games are now 17+ because they're romantic and sexual and politically engaged.”
Bloomstone is heavily inspired by a phrase her mentor would often say: “his concerns as an artist are not different from his concerns in the world.”
“I'm concerned about the politics surrounding Roblox. It is a concern of mine that predators are on this platform and have been for a long time,” Bloomstone said. “It is a concern of mine that they claim to have moderators to protect these spaces, but they don't actually moderate.”
For the “Pandemic Roblox” interactive workshops on Nov. 18 and Dec. 6, Bloomstone invites visitors to a participatory program reflecting on the shifting digital landscapes of the COVID-19 pandemic five years later. Participants should bring their own devices and have Roblox installed and accessible.
For this workshop, participants will first view a new video performance work, "Does that hurt the fish?," followed by a gameplay session together on individual devices of the Roblox game “Little Darlings, sick" while navigating pandemic-related ephemera in real time. Participants can share thoughts in the game chat, while also considering how Roblox might represent a politically fraught, shifting platform that mirrors broader culture.
Bloomstone’s beliefs, both politically and morally, are seen throughout the exhibit. “Games are political; you cannot separate any art from politics,” Bloomstone said. “I believe that firmly, and if you don't care about politics, you don't care about people.”
With the current political climate, Bloomstone emphasized the importance of community engagement, which her work and exhibit highlight.
This exhibition includes themes of economic survival, erotic labor and geopolitical conflict. Viewer discretion is advised.
-- Written by Natalie Glosek of the Class of 2026