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Exhibition List
no phoenix, just ashes
2015; wood, paint
Codeswitch: Mixtape
2011; wood
American Idyll
2021; wood, concrete, clamp, paint
life ifs
2021; wood, gold foil
ampersand
2021; cherry, Pantone 287 (W and L Blue) paint
there are combustibles in every state
2021; wood
watch it all burn
2021; wood ash
Behind the W&L Façade: Not Unmindful of the Future but Avoidant of the Past
by W&L students: Clara Albacete, Maia Baldridge, Joey Dickinson, James Eaton, Arden Floyd, Catherine Hudson, Emmie McElroy
htmlText_D33BD3BA_CAA2_3C65_41C2_ACB3F9058F4F.html =
Exhibition List
no phoenix, just ashes
2015; wood, paint
Codeswitch: Mixtape
2011; wood
American Idyll
2021; wood, concrete, clamp, paint
life ifs
2021; wood, gold foil
ampersand
2021; cherry, Pantone 287 (W and L Blue) paint
there are combustibles in every state
2021; wood
watch it all burn
2021; wood ash
Behind the W&L Façade: Not Unmindful of the Future but Avoidant of the Past
by W&L students: Clara Albacete, Maia Baldridge, Joey Dickinson, James Eaton, Arden Floyd, Catherine Hudson, Emmie McElroy
htmlText_D3B37118_CABE_3C25_41E4_7B599ACF04C1.html =
Exhibition List
no phoenix, just ashes
2015; wood, paint
Codeswitch: Mixtape
2011; wood
American Idyll
2021; wood, concrete, clamp, paint
life ifs
2021; wood, gold foil
ampersand
2021; cherry, Pantone 287 (W and L Blue) paint
there are combustibles in every state
2021; wood
watch it all burn
2021; wood ash
Behind the W&L Façade: Not Unmindful of the Future but Avoidant of the Past
by W&L students: Clara Albacete, Maia Baldridge, Joey Dickinson, James Eaton, Arden Floyd, Catherine Hudson, Emmie McElroy
htmlText_D3E80E74_CAA2_44ED_41DF_A7B082506EA2.html =
Exhibition List
no phoenix, just ashes
2015; wood, paint
Codeswitch: Mixtape
2011; wood
American Idyll
2021; wood, concrete, clamp, paint
life ifs
2021; wood, gold foil
ampersand
2021; cherry, Pantone 287 (W and L Blue) paint
there are combustibles in every state
2021; wood
watch it all burn
2021; wood ash
Behind the W&L Façade: Not Unmindful of the Future but Avoidant of the Past
by W&L students: Clara Albacete, Maia Baldridge, Joey Dickinson, James Eaton, Arden Floyd, Catherine Hudson, Emmie McElroy
htmlText_D4486702_CA67_C425_41E7_B9D52E337D0A.html =
Solastalgia: On Hold
This exhibition featuring new work by William Ransom and collaborative work made by Ransom and Sandy de Lissovoy’s Land and Passage sculpture class explores the sense of distress and uncertainty resulting from environmental change and degradation or slippage in societal foundations. To lose one’s sense of relative stability inherent in the natural order due to disruption of that order creates a unique unease; a loss of solace and a longing referred to as solastalgia. The solace of the familiar can be lost even if the landscape remains but the underlying foundation or natural rhythms shift into an unrecognizable pattern. The racial reckoning taking place across the country and the recent political and social climate makes us keenly aware of how tenuous this whole experiment in democracy really is and always has been. The work in this show pairs Ransom’s personal story and history with the larger national story and legacy of race, justice and unrest. There is a certain existential dread that comes with the recognition of the truth of our collective history and an acknowledgment of the perpetuating systems that have defined our nation from the start.
Our bodies inherently can understand this unease because our bodies know the material world. When we are attuned and attentive we can experience the world through our corporeal awareness of material conditions. We can feel the visual and visceral effect of artwork that is suspended in its state of becoming. We can grasp the tenuousness of time held in the static grip of an object, action or image. The work in this exhibition bears witness to a transitory, provisional state with an inherent unease and tension. Simple gestures here belie the complexity of the material universe of history, culture, manufacture or nature.
—William Ransom
htmlText_D473BF2D_CA62_447F_41D8_86A2DFA0C817.html =
Solastalgia: On Hold
This exhibition featuring new work by William Ransom and collaborative work made by Ransom and Sandy de Lissovoy’s Land and Passage sculpture class explores the sense of distress and uncertainty resulting from environmental change and degradation or slippage in societal foundations. To lose one’s sense of relative stability inherent in the natural order due to disruption of that order creates a unique unease; a loss of solace and a longing referred to as solastalgia. The solace of the familiar can be lost even if the landscape remains but the underlying foundation or natural rhythms shift into an unrecognizable pattern. The racial reckoning taking place across the country and the recent political and social climate makes us keenly aware of how tenuous this whole experiment in democracy really is and always has been. The work in this show pairs Ransom’s personal story and history with the larger national story and legacy of race, justice and unrest. There is a certain existential dread that comes with the recognition of the truth of our collective history and an acknowledgment of the perpetuating systems that have defined our nation from the start.
Our bodies inherently can understand this unease because our bodies know the material world. When we are attuned and attentive we can experience the world through our corporeal awareness of material conditions. We can feel the visual and visceral effect of artwork that is suspended in its state of becoming. We can grasp the tenuousness of time held in the static grip of an object, action or image. The work in this exhibition bears witness to a transitory, provisional state with an inherent unease and tension. Simple gestures here belie the complexity of the material universe of history, culture, manufacture or nature.
—William Ransom
htmlText_D4CC8975_CBA6_4CEF_41E9_CB14456B79FE.html =
Gather: Led by Visiting Artist William Ransom, in Assistant Professor Sandy de Lissovoy’s Land and Passage course, Winter 2021.
For this project consider the witnessing gaze of material and what it can communicate about the past. W&L’s location in Lexington presents an opportunity to investigate national and local history through the lens of material witnessing. There are trees in Lexington that bore witness to the savagery of the institution of slavery. There are buildings that housed generals of the Confederacy. The DNA of American civil conflict is literally rooted in the soil and is embodied with each breath drawn from the air. Grass growing over a gravesite is fed by the stories of those buried below. Spend some time with your eyes open to history and collect objects or materials that speak to the past and can tell stories through new contexts. Working collaboratively, design and create a system or structure for displaying the objects and materials you have gathered to share in the gallery. Imagine this structure as the starting point for conversation. Consider ways in which stories may overlap and timelines might converge.
Behind the W&L Façade: Not Unmindful of the Future but Avoidant of the Past
Student Artists: Clara Albacete, Maia Baldridge, Joey Dickinson, James Eaton, Arden Floyd, Catherine Hudson, Emmie McElroy
Found materials:
Moss, grass, and other various plants from
between the bricks of the Colonnade
Boxwood branches from cemetery
Branches from woods creek area
Branches from outside of Lenfest
Bark from outside of Lenfest
Iron slag from Roaring Run Iron Furnace in
Jefferson National Forest
Rocks from woods creek
Logs from woods creek
Lemon from Stonewall Jackson gravesite
Lemons from store
Witch’s burr from sweetgum trees
Pinecones from woods creek
Mud from Woods Creek
Wall and floor: Canvas, thread, charcoal, basswood, plywood and pine.
To step onto the iconic Colonnade of Washington and Lee University is to step into a history of academic excellence and a tightly knit community bound by an age-old honor system and speaking tradition. At least, that’s what the pamphlet will tell you. However, unseen in the foundation of this mirage of perfection are the handprints of the enslaved workers that have been neglected in the university’s complicated history. If the Lexington landscape—witness to this troubled history—could speak, it would not only tell us about this obscured part of the story, but also how the school dragged its feet in integration and coeducation, and that even today discrimination permeates the student body and culture.
In the process of creating our installation, we—students at Washington and Lee—looked at the university’s public, deceivingly glossy image and decided to reframe the lens through which the institution’s story is told. We did this by exploring Lexington and surrounding areas and gathering materials that have been unique witnesses to the region’s history, from a lemon that rested six feet above Stonewall Jackson in the Oak Grove Cemetery, to Roaring Run Iron Furnace’s slag children recently gathered in the Jefferson National Forest. A majority of the materials inhabiting the backside of our installation come from W&L’s own nature spots, including Woods Creek, Liberty Hall Ruins, and back-campus trails. These are sections of the university that we have found to be a breath of fresh air from the sometimes suffocating, stratified student culture: a by-product of that same dark, hidden history as well as the university’s marriage to tradition and reluctance to adapt to the needs of an increasingly diverse student body.
In this installation, we intend to create a contrast between the school’s clean-cut, publicly presented, proudly traditional reputation—represented by the front facing “Colonnade”—as well as the messier, often overlooked history of the enslaved people who lived and died here—represented by the immersive “back campus” landscape where all are welcome.
We invite you, the viewer, to walk through our display and examine the story of W&L’s past as well as its present through the lens of those that have been witness to the whole of it—elements of the natural landscape. As you look through the “eyes” of these objects gathered from all over Lexington, consider how the narrative of the past is intricately woven with the story of the present and the projection for the future. Consider the footprints you leave behind, the ones that were there before you, and those that will come after. What do they see? What do they say? As you pass through our installation and the “other” side of the university’s story, we ask you to consider the history of W&L you’ve been told and how it would change if it had been written by a brick on the Colonnade.
htmlText_D596222E_CBA2_3C7D_41B2_7584B8113918.html =
Gather: Led by Visiting Artist William Ransom, in Assistant Professor Sandy de Lissovoy’s Land and Passage course, Winter 2021.
For this project consider the witnessing gaze of material and what it can communicate about the past. W&L’s location in Lexington presents an opportunity to investigate national and local history through the lens of material witnessing. There are trees in Lexington that bore witness to the savagery of the institution of slavery. There are buildings that housed generals of the Confederacy. The DNA of American civil conflict is literally rooted in the soil and is embodied with each breath drawn from the air. Grass growing over a gravesite is fed by the stories of those buried below. Spend some time with your eyes open to history and collect objects or materials that speak to the past and can tell stories through new contexts. Working collaboratively, design and create a system or structure for displaying the objects and materials you have gathered to share in the gallery. Imagine this structure as the starting point for conversation. Consider ways in which stories may overlap and timelines might converge.
Behind the W&L Façade: Not Unmindful of the Future but Avoidant of the Past
Student Artists: Clara Albacete, Maia Baldridge, Joey Dickinson, James Eaton, Arden Floyd, Catherine Hudson, Emmie McElroy
Found materials:
Moss, grass, and other various plants from
between the bricks of the Colonnade
Boxwood branches from cemetery
Branches from woods creek area
Branches from outside of Lenfest
Bark from outside of Lenfest
Iron slag from Roaring Run Iron Furnace in
Jefferson National Forest
Rocks from woods creek
Logs from woods creek
Lemon from Stonewall Jackson gravesite
Lemons from store
Witch’s burr from sweetgum trees
Pinecones from woods creek
Mud from Woods Creek
Wall and floor: Canvas, thread, charcoal, basswood, plywood and pine.
To step onto the iconic Colonnade of Washington and Lee University is to step into a history of academic excellence and a tightly knit community bound by an age-old honor system and speaking tradition. At least, that’s what the pamphlet will tell you. However, unseen in the foundation of this mirage of perfection are the handprints of the enslaved workers that have been neglected in the university’s complicated history. If the Lexington landscape—witness to this troubled history—could speak, it would not only tell us about this obscured part of the story, but also how the school dragged its feet in integration and coeducation, and that even today discrimination permeates the student body and culture.
In the process of creating our installation, we—students at Washington and Lee—looked at the university’s public, deceivingly glossy image and decided to reframe the lens through which the institution’s story is told. We did this by exploring Lexington and surrounding areas and gathering materials that have been unique witnesses to the region’s history, from a lemon that rested six feet above Stonewall Jackson in the Oak Grove Cemetery, to Roaring Run Iron Furnace’s slag children recently gathered in the Jefferson National Forest. A majority of the materials inhabiting the backside of our installation come from W&L’s own nature spots, including Woods Creek, Liberty Hall Ruins, and back-campus trails. These are sections of the university that we have found to be a breath of fresh air from the sometimes suffocating, stratified student culture: a by-product of that same dark, hidden history as well as the university’s marriage to tradition and reluctance to adapt to the needs of an increasingly diverse student body.
In this installation, we intend to create a contrast between the school’s clean-cut, publicly presented, proudly traditional reputation—represented by the front facing “Colonnade”—as well as the messier, often overlooked history of the enslaved people who lived and died here—represented by the immersive “back campus” landscape where all are welcome.
We invite you, the viewer, to walk through our display and examine the story of W&L’s past as well as its present through the lens of those that have been witness to the whole of it—elements of the natural landscape. As you look through the “eyes” of these objects gathered from all over Lexington, consider how the narrative of the past is intricately woven with the story of the present and the projection for the future. Consider the footprints you leave behind, the ones that were there before you, and those that will come after. What do they see? What do they say? As you pass through our installation and the “other” side of the university’s story, we ask you to consider the history of W&L you’ve been told and how it would change if it had been written by a brick on the Colonnade.
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Solastalgia: On Hold
This exhibition featuring new work by William Ransom and collaborative work made by Ransom and Sandy de Lissovoy’s Land and Passage sculpture class explores the sense of distress and uncertainty resulting from environmental change and degradation or slippage in societal foundations. To lose one’s sense of relative stability inherent in the natural order due to disruption of that order creates a unique unease; a loss of solace and a longing referred to as solastalgia. The solace of the familiar can be lost even if the landscape remains but the underlying foundation or natural rhythms shift into an unrecognizable pattern. The racial reckoning taking place across the country and the recent political and social climate makes us keenly aware of how tenuous this whole experiment in democracy really is and always has been. The work in this show pairs Ransom’s personal story and history with the larger national story and legacy of race, justice and unrest. There is a certain existential dread that comes with the recognition of the truth of our collective history and an acknowledgment of the perpetuating systems that have defined our nation from the start.
Our bodies inherently can understand this unease because our bodies know the material world. When we are attuned and attentive we can experience the world through our corporeal awareness of material conditions. We can feel the visual and visceral effect of artwork that is suspended in its state of becoming. We can grasp the tenuousness of time held in the static grip of an object, action or image. The work in this exhibition bears witness to a transitory, provisional state with an inherent unease and tension. Simple gestures here belie the complexity of the material universe of history, culture, manufacture or nature.
—William Ransom
htmlText_D5B5BA1D_CBA5_CC5F_41C5_BD705156B95F.html =
Gather: Led by Visiting Artist William Ransom, in Assistant Professor Sandy de Lissovoy’s Land and Passage course, Winter 2021.
For this project consider the witnessing gaze of material and what it can communicate about the past. W&L’s location in Lexington presents an opportunity to investigate national and local history through the lens of material witnessing. There are trees in Lexington that bore witness to the savagery of the institution of slavery. There are buildings that housed generals of the Confederacy. The DNA of American civil conflict is literally rooted in the soil and is embodied with each breath drawn from the air. Grass growing over a gravesite is fed by the stories of those buried below. Spend some time with your eyes open to history and collect objects or materials that speak to the past and can tell stories through new contexts. Working collaboratively, design and create a system or structure for displaying the objects and materials you have gathered to share in the gallery. Imagine this structure as the starting point for conversation. Consider ways in which stories may overlap and timelines might converge.
Behind the W&L Façade: Not Unmindful of the Future but Avoidant of the Past
Student Artists: Clara Albacete, Maia Baldridge, Joey Dickinson, James Eaton, Arden Floyd, Catherine Hudson, Emmie McElroy
Found materials:
Moss, grass, and other various plants from
between the bricks of the Colonnade
Boxwood branches from cemetery
Branches from woods creek area
Branches from outside of Lenfest
Bark from outside of Lenfest
Iron slag from Roaring Run Iron Furnace in
Jefferson National Forest
Rocks from woods creek
Logs from woods creek
Lemon from Stonewall Jackson gravesite
Lemons from store
Witch’s burr from sweetgum trees
Pinecones from woods creek
Mud from Woods Creek
Wall and floor: Canvas, thread, charcoal, basswood, plywood and pine.
To step onto the iconic Colonnade of Washington and Lee University is to step into a history of academic excellence and a tightly knit community bound by an age-old honor system and speaking tradition. At least, that’s what the pamphlet will tell you. However, unseen in the foundation of this mirage of perfection are the handprints of the enslaved workers that have been neglected in the university’s complicated history. If the Lexington landscape—witness to this troubled history—could speak, it would not only tell us about this obscured part of the story, but also how the school dragged its feet in integration and coeducation, and that even today discrimination permeates the student body and culture.
In the process of creating our installation, we—students at Washington and Lee—looked at the university’s public, deceivingly glossy image and decided to reframe the lens through which the institution’s story is told. We did this by exploring Lexington and surrounding areas and gathering materials that have been unique witnesses to the region’s history, from a lemon that rested six feet above Stonewall Jackson in the Oak Grove Cemetery, to Roaring Run Iron Furnace’s slag children recently gathered in the Jefferson National Forest. A majority of the materials inhabiting the backside of our installation come from W&L’s own nature spots, including Woods Creek, Liberty Hall Ruins, and back-campus trails. These are sections of the university that we have found to be a breath of fresh air from the sometimes suffocating, stratified student culture: a by-product of that same dark, hidden history as well as the university’s marriage to tradition and reluctance to adapt to the needs of an increasingly diverse student body.
In this installation, we intend to create a contrast between the school’s clean-cut, publicly presented, proudly traditional reputation—represented by the front facing “Colonnade”—as well as the messier, often overlooked history of the enslaved people who lived and died here—represented by the immersive “back campus” landscape where all are welcome.
We invite you, the viewer, to walk through our display and examine the story of W&L’s past as well as its present through the lens of those that have been witness to the whole of it—elements of the natural landscape. As you look through the “eyes” of these objects gathered from all over Lexington, consider how the narrative of the past is intricately woven with the story of the present and the projection for the future. Consider the footprints you leave behind, the ones that were there before you, and those that will come after. What do they see? What do they say? As you pass through our installation and the “other” side of the university’s story, we ask you to consider the history of W&L you’ve been told and how it would change if it had been written by a brick on the Colonnade.
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Solastalgia: On Hold
This exhibition featuring new work by William Ransom and collaborative work made by Ransom and Sandy de Lissovoy’s Land and Passage sculpture class explores the sense of distress and uncertainty resulting from environmental change and degradation or slippage in societal foundations. To lose one’s sense of relative stability inherent in the natural order due to disruption of that order creates a unique unease; a loss of solace and a longing referred to as solastalgia. The solace of the familiar can be lost even if the landscape remains but the underlying foundation or natural rhythms shift into an unrecognizable pattern. The racial reckoning taking place across the country and the recent political and social climate makes us keenly aware of how tenuous this whole experiment in democracy really is and always has been. The work in this show pairs Ransom’s personal story and history with the larger national story and legacy of race, justice and unrest. There is a certain existential dread that comes with the recognition of the truth of our collective history and an acknowledgment of the perpetuating systems that have defined our nation from the start.
Our bodies inherently can understand this unease because our bodies know the material world. When we are attuned and attentive we can experience the world through our corporeal awareness of material conditions. We can feel the visual and visceral effect of artwork that is suspended in its state of becoming. We can grasp the tenuousness of time held in the static grip of an object, action or image. The work in this exhibition bears witness to a transitory, provisional state with an inherent unease and tension. Simple gestures here belie the complexity of the material universe of history, culture, manufacture or nature.
—William Ransom
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