Housed inside the O’Connor Gallery right now is an art exhibit designed to excite most of the five senses and challenge our perception of the world. The combined efforts of three artists, Erica Grimm, Tracie Stewart, and Sheinagh Anderson, Grief Work/Hope Work: Connecting Ecology, Science and Art touches people on a personal level.
Spanning across many media, the exhibit features a series of drawings, paintings, artist books, maguettes, sculptures, and soundscapes that are all used to draw analogies between the human body and bodies of water and beg the important questions about climate change.
With a fluid-like flow, the exhibit predominately uses boat metaphors to encourage patrons to reflect on what it means to be a human being in today’s current day and age, and to explore the radical interconnections between people and their ecological issues.
Collectively, the exhibit attempts to follow the lines between ethics, aesthetics, ecology, community, science, and art, all while asking spectators to consider a new intimacy with the earth that takes into consideration the complexities that affect all life on the planet.
With a focus on the intertwined nature of life and the power of creativity, replica coracles—the most ancient boat construction known—are used to entice exhibit attendees to consider how humanity will manage the urgent environmental problems facing the global community, and to ask how is it possible to stay afloat during a wicked storm?
Admission to Grief Work/Hope Work: Connecting Ecology, Science and Art is free, and the gallery is open every Wednesday to Saturday, from 12:00 – 5:00 p.m. The exhibit itself runs until August 3, 2018.
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