Flooded Sanctuaries
March 1 — March 19, 2017

Curated by
Sergio Vega

Between a view and a milestone presents works by Oolite Arts’s studio residents that offer contemplative meditations on place. While place can imply a certain level of geographic specificity, determining placehood can be difficult and requires certain physical and intangible elements to make it so. The exhibition’s title refers to a visual device used in landscape painting, in which the painter includes an object in the foreground as a means of framing the view of the landscape. Places call for this sort of demarcation, but they also call for a more emotive connection that is highly dependent upon the individual occupying it. Places are felt as much as they are physically constructed.

In this exhibition, perspective—both spatial and interpretive—plays an important role in framing the places these works address. A video game finds its protagonist navigating through an amorphous landscape that simultaneously inspires awe and dread. A set of sculptures comprised of materials native to Miami’s urban topography are used to further investigate ideas of mobility and labor. A lone figure in a grassy field desperately bobbing for apples to the sound of a mournful poem considers how recent events and contentious histories can oftentimes define the places we live in. The works in this exhibition attempt to understand the evocative nature of place and invite more nuanced explorations of time, memory and identity.