CAST/RECAST
/CAST / RECAST
October 14 - December 3, 2022, @ Mason Exhibitions Arlington
“Art is a magic…” -Leonora Carrington
Rahne Alexander
About the Exhibition
Mason Exhibitions is honored to present Cast/Recast, a group exhibition of photography, video, sculpture, painting, site-specific installation, and live performative work for select programs. Curated by Alissa Maru in collaboration with Hannah Barco and Sue Wrbican.
In 2020, artist and George Mason University School of Art professor Sue Wrbican installed the new public sculpture Buoyant Force in Reston Town Square Park in Reston, Virginia. The interactive sculpture features a QR code that enables the viewer to talk to the sculpture via text, and the sculpture will begin to tell viewers its story. The sculpture can also offer a reading, like a Tarot Card reading. The twenty-two women in Cast/Recast are the artists who created those readings, or Oracles as they came to be known.
Invited by Wrbican to create digital images and texts that speak of our collective futures, Mason Exhibitions Arlington has now brought these artists together in Cast/Recast to exhibit works of their choosing. What results is an exhibition of unsinkable spirit offering a multitude of wisdoms. This story is ongoing, and it is a story of insistence, persistence, with a sharp focus on analyzing contemporary injustices and moving us toward a world that we want to live in.
Cast/Recast fills the gallery at Mason Exhibitions with installations, sculptures, altars, manifestos, performance documentation, paintings, photographs, wallpaper, a soundtrack, and a portal. Participating artists include: Rahne Alexander, Laure Drogoul, Cheryl Edwards, Heloisa Escudero, Maggie Gourlay, Mira Hecht, Kay Hwang, Veronica Jackson, Jessica Kallista, Maria Karametou, Isabel Manalo, Ceci Cole McInturff, Meeting Ground (Susan Main and MJ Neuberger), Zia Palmer, Judith Pratt, Lisa Rosenstein, Nicole Salimbene, Asha Santee, Katherine Thompson, Jessica Valoris, and Naoko Wowsugi.
This exhibition is presented in partnership with Tephra Institute of Contemporary Art (Tephra ICA). A concurrent exhibition, Forecast will be on view at the Tephra ICA at Signature gallery located at 11580 Freedom Avenue, Reston, VA from November 3, 2022 through February 14, 2023. This exhibition presents the entire group of Buoyant Oracles, their fine art prints, reflections and predictions, along with ephemera of the Buoyant Force sculpture.
Exhibit Images
Participating artists
Asha Santee "BOOMCLAK"
Asha "BOOMCLAK" Santee's signature sticks and production are responsible for the backbone of many of the DMV’s unique sounds including The Peace & Body Roll Duo BOOMscat, The CooLots, Grammy Nominee Carolyn Malachi, and Grammy Award Winning, Mya. Asha’s gifts are not limited to the stage as she has scored award winning Blackstar Film Festival projects including Tender and Abundance, directed by Felicia Pride and Kym Allen respectively.
Everyday, I push. Towards. Away. Some days with my head held high. Others, low. Placing myself on a hook to be cast out into the open sea. Praying that life bites…..and takes me back to where I began. Innocent. Unbothered. Free. Tiny tugs of joy excite me but last no longer than a chuckle. Life exists. Recast. Relax. Breath. Thou shalt Relaxeth.
Meeting Ground App
Meeting Ground “Meeting Ground App”
Share your ground.
As we continue to explore the ground as mediator of individual and collective experience, we have created the Meeting Ground app as a way to share ground across time and space. Feel free to use this tool to share your ground as often as you like. Invite others.
Artists, curators and activists Susan Main and MJ Neuberger invite participants to look down and attend to the spaces they walk upon. Their collaborative work brings together artists and non-artists through simple prompts that encourage co-creation and re-imagination of shared space. From Project: Soils porch chats, quarterly seasonal gatherings, and participatory acts of intention and attention, Meeting Ground explores the limits and possibilities of aesthetics to open up/decolonize/re-center a meeting with the ground.
Outdoor digital screen
Jessica Valoris “Ode to Zipporah”
Ode to Zipporah is a ritual performance that was created through a collaborative process, engaging an intergenerational group of four Black women and a Black girl. This project pays tribute to the history of resistance and the ways that Black women have embodied liberation, even while navigating captivity. Ode to Zipporah centers the liberatory practices built by Black women under the violence of chattel slavery. Black women were integral to the legacy of fugitivity: procuring supplies, harboring fugitives, delivering provisions, providing intel, and supporting other forms of resistance. These practices were woven into their daily lives, though escape was much harder for Black women than their male counterparts. Ode to Zipporah honors Zipporah, Moses’s wife, and centers her as an archetype for Black women who are the doulas of liberation. Ode to Zipporah was created collaboratively with Laquesha Barnes, Camille Douglass, Dyonnia Hill, Ayesha Ali, and filmmaker Blak Dawn. https://www.jessicavaloris.com/ode-to-zipporah Jessica Valoris's Ode to Zipporah is included in the outdoor video project at Mason Exhibitions Arlington as part of the current Cast/Recast show.
Heloisa Escudero “Dysfunctional Beauty”
“Forecast”
About Sue Wrbican’s Bouyant Force and the Bouyant Oracle
Buoyant Force is a 50-foot steel sculpture by Sue Wrbican inspired by the paintings of American Surrealist Kay Sage (b. 1898, Albany, New York; d. 1963, Woodbury, Connecticut). Sage is recognized for her paintings of scaffolded structures and furled fabric in desolate landscapes. Buoyant Force is on view in Reston Town Square Park through November 1, 2024.
The Buoyant Oracle is a playful interactive feature that provides the opportunity to chat with Buoyant Force. Created by the Playful City Lab at American University led by Benjamin Stokes, Hazel Arroyo, Chris Karr, and Mitchell Loewen in collaboration with Sue Wrbican and Tephra ICA, the installation features an evolving cast of guest oracles and narratives over the next five years.
The interactive feature is activated by using your phone to scan the on-site QR code. Once activated, in a conversational mode, the sculpture sends participants annotated photographs similar to polaroids that reveal the layered history, artist philosophy, and production process behind the monumental artwork. Connected to the surrealist tradition of the sculpture, the participant may encounter an Oracle when engaging with the feature that will pull different “readings” of paired poetry and remixed images of the sculpture. The goal, with an eye to social distancing, is to provide a light-hearted layer of engagement to connect during this unique time with the whimsical nature of Tephra ICA's largest installation to date.
As a design project, the Buoyant Oracle explores how digital modes can strengthen the connection to place, borrowing concepts from game design such as: offering choices, cultivating playful participation, and embracing unpredictability that results in each participant having a unique experience of their own. The experience only requires a mobile phone — no fancy apps or even a data plan are needed. Try it yourself by visiting the sculpture in-person at Reston Town Square Park and look for the blue sign with a speech bubble located next to the sculpture!
Sue Wrbican, Bouyant Force, 2020
Sue Wrbican, Bouyant Force, 2020
Additional programming supporting the exhibition:
Events will take place at Mason Exhibitions Arlington unless otherwise noted. The exhibition and events are free and open to members of the media and public.
Grounding Ceremony
Friday, October 14, 5 -7 pm
Performance and offering with artists: Jessica Kallista and Meeting Ground
Artist Talk + Performance Art by Laure Drogoul
Saturday, October 29, 12 - 3 pm
A site-specific socially engaged performance and discussion with Cast/Recast artists
RSVP: go.gmu.edu/drougolperformance
African Dolls- A Scholarly Talk
Thursday, November 10, 6 - 8 pm
Online artist talk + Egyptian and African Studies scholars
RSVP: go.gmu.edu/africandolls
Event Recordings
Artist Talk October 29
CAST / RECAST Artist Talk
Performance Art by Laure Drogoul - October 29
African Dolls- A Scholarly Talk November 10
