Object and Meaning: An Exploration of Brokenness and Repair

Place Gallery (in the atrium of Pioneer Place Mall)
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Exhibition runs September 21-November 2, 2013
Opening Reception- September 21, 2013, 6-9pm
Second Reception- October 19, 2013, 6-9pm
Gallery Hours: Thursday-Sunday, noon-6pm

In this exhibition, you are invited to break things, things that are merely objects, or things that are personal and meaningful to you. You are also invited to bring things to be mended.

how long will you have to make clay pitchers
that have to be broken to enter you?
--Rumi

It's easy to categorize things in our lives or in the world as either falling apart or coming together, but these things are always happening in tandem. By paring them down to simplest form and bringing them into the same room, the juxtaposition illuminates their relation to one another, how they are two sides of the same coin. Construction and destruction are both part of the same unfolding story.

In destroying and mending objects there is an opportunity for reflection about the meanings and stories we attach to these objects. By transmuting the objects, there's the possibility of transmuting their stories as well.

It is an opportunity to glimpse into the possibility of a new organization of meaning. It is the way things are always breaking down and building up at the same time. It is the making and remaking of meaning. It is systems and stories that no longer work in their wholeness, things that have to be pieced together from what remains, from what has been worn and torn and shattered, loved into loose strands.

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***I would like to invite you to bring glass, ceramic or fragile items that you wish to break during the opening, or at any point throughout the exhibition, or anything you would like to have mended. I will be 'repairing' objects in the gallery to return to their owners in new incarnations. I am also seeking donations of glass or ceramic objects in bulk that you are willing to part with for the general public to break throughout the course of the exhibition. Please comment here or send me an email at shelleychamberlin@gmail.com if you have anything you wish to donate. It'd be much appreciated!