The Shape of Time

May 26 - July 2nd

Works by: Corinne Chase, Carolina Cuevas, Roselynn Sadaghiani, Brooke Schneider, Yeabsera Tabb, Poppy Thomas

The Shape of Time explores how collective and individual identity, memory and history can be shaped through the materiality of clay and ceramics' relationship to other mediums. Corinne Chase (b. 1995, Orange, MA)  engages with time and gravity as a counterpart in capturing artifacts of gesture between artist and material. Brooke Schneider’s (b.1996‚ Greenville‚ SC) practice questions how collective memory informs personal and societal ideologies in the context of the history of labor in the American South. By creating a conversation between process and material she is able to investigate value and meaning assigned to objects through labor. By contextualizing her practice within history, Schneider reveals how our interaction with these materials and objects inform memory. Painter Roselynn Sadaghiani (b. 2000, Vancouver, Canada) created a number of collaborative pieces with Schneider, where the ceramics frame small oil paintings. Sadaghiani strips the objects she depicts of their original context and meaning, inviting the spectator to assign personal values to them. 

For Yeabsera Tabb (b. 1998 Addis Abba, Ethiopia), to remember is to preserve. The artistic language of witnessing and slowing down allows Tabb to access memory that is held within bodies, objects, and physical structures. Her installations are grounded environments that allow one to slow down and reconcile an imperfect recollection of the past with the present and future. Carolina Cuevas (b. 1998 Miami, Florida) sees language in both personal history and in processes and materials that have existed long before her. The tension of relationships and the meeting of the body and material are central to her work. Oral tradition and exploration of time in the labor of making are made evident through a combination of clay and fabric. As Cuevas dialogues with her objects they whisper their own histories and stories, and she tells them hers. 

Through her Ratification series Poppy Thomas (b. 2002, London UK), attempts to foster a sense of connection and solidarity between our past and present. She emphasizes that one day the contemporary moment will be seen as history and it is up to us to decide how we will be remembered. Inspired by a scornful comment that described her existence in New York as “living like rats, hanging out with her little rat friends, and having rat dinner parties,” she uses the figure of the rat as a stand-in for humanity. For Thomas the rat is a living representation of human presence. Just like clay, wherever there are people, there are rats.