Press
Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians: Carmen Amengual’s A Non-Coincidental Mirror
Film still from Carmen Amengual, A Non-Coincidental Mirror, 2024 (A Non-Coincidental Mirror was commissioned as part of Amengual’s 2022–24 Vera List Center for Art and PoliticsFellowship).
A NON-COINCIDENTAL MIRROR
JOURNAL OF THE SOCIETY OF ARCHITECTURAL HISTORIANS
DECEMBER 2025
“The film at the center of Carmen Amengual’s installation A Non-Coincidental Mirror [co-presented by the Vera List Center for Art and Politics and Smack Mellon] opens with a whisper: “Make of your history a mystery and you might find your place in it.” An Argentine artist based in Los Angeles, Amengual situated her recent exhibition in the raw, industrial space of Smack Mellon in Brooklyn, New York. The multichannel film, originally shot on 16 mm, played asynchronously across three screens, suggesting a nonlinear and possibly recursive narrative made up of images of personal and public archives, interviews, and above all architectural and urban spaces. Rooted in historical research, Amengual’s project blurs the line between personal memory and historical record. Her research became part of the exhibition itself: books, magazines, color copies, hand-annotated printouts, and ephemera from the artist’s mother’s archives were spread across curving tables and benches that wound through the gallery.”