January 21, 2022 - February 4, 2022
Produce Gallery, 419 Peoples St, Corpus Christi, TX
Align
a•lign: to bring into a line or alignment; to bring into cooperation or agreement with a particular group, part, cause etc.
Align is an exercise in finding commonality between all members of the Radius Collective. The final solution is the alignment of all of the artists. In contrast to previous years, this project could focus on positive emotions and the desire to unify, but not necessarily.
Each member conducted an interview with another member for 20-30 minutes. Each interview started with the same first question: What is the first thing you think about when you hear the word align? Each member then created 3 executions in response to the interview as well as their own understandings/interests as related to “align.”
Participating Radius Collective artists:
1. James Barkley
2. Sarah Friedman
3. Vaishnavi Kumar
4. Daria Nikolaeva
5. Molly Haig
6. Kristen Mallia
7. Benjamin Earl
8. Christopher Field
9. Padmini Chandrasekaran
10. Joshua Duttweiler
James Barkley
Align
Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts, September 11, 2021
This series explores visually the physical and emotional state in which a couple aligns.
As the pandemic continues to strip away the superficial, relationships have either become closer and stronger, or faded away with the old world. One truth that holds is how aligning on core values is of the utmost importance for a thriving relationship. And hugs.
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Sarah Friedman
Big Swatches
Wool and Lurex, 2020
These large-scale knit swatches were inspired by the idea of aligning daily ritual practices with art practice. They are meant to reflect the beauty in the everyday process of enhancing your craft — like planning, creating, and labeling a small test swatch before knitting a sweater. Each swatch is made up of a different open weave structure, allowing for environmental disruption.
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Vaishnavi Kumar
Mis/alignment
Posters + Projection Mapping, 2022
A triptych born from 2 unique conversations with Daria Nikolaeva (1/3) and Sarah Friedman (3/3), and one of many internal monologues (2/3). This piece finds alignment in shared experiences of misalignment; 1/3 travel, home, seeking familiarity; 2/3 birthplace, (not) belonging, leaving; 3/3 creative practice, acceptance, discovery.
A projection-mapped layer weaves the posters together, immersing you in my quest of constantly seeking alignment wherever life takes me.
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Daria Nikolaeva
Untitled
Newsprint, 2022
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Molly Haig
Accumulation
Digital sketches, paper installation, 2022
We are the accumulation of our thoughts. They collect and dissipate, refracted through memory. Recording them is a form of alignment with ourselves, but as we change, the accuracy of their narrative changes too.
Accumulation is an ongoing bedtime ritual. Each captured phrase connects to the experience of living through the day, and each resulting six-sided form reframes its content. Together, these memories create an intricate, illegible cloud, the original sentiments obscured but not erased.
Production assistance and photography: William Haig
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Kristen Mallia
tran•script
Website, “landscapes,” video, 2022
My virtual interview with Benjamin Earl on June 29, 2021 coincided with a family conversation about a destination wedding that took place in the summer of 1980. Ben’s work at that time was centering on the Matterhorn, the beloved natural monument that punctuates the Alps that straddle Switzerland and Italy. Curiously, my mother’s comical tale of train-hopping while 5 months pregnant led her straight up the Alps. This alignment was one of many. As I dipped into different aspects of my studio practice with Ben’s “environmental renderings” in mind, concepts seemed to overlap in myriad unexpected directions. “tran•script” began as a digital process space where the flaws of Zoom transcription and glitchy wifi might mirror the lapses in memory recollection and the re-telling of family stories over time. Digital mock-ups made connections tangible, resulting in three physical “landscapes” (sculpture) and one “reconstructed memory” (video).
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Benjamin Earl
Misalignment
Video
For something to be misaligned, it must be out of alignment with something else. Through this series of posters and then video, I explored the idea of misalignment as practice by purposely misusing productivity software.
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Christopher Field
Art Show (1948-2021)
Digital C-print on aluminum, 2022
I’m interested in the translation and juxtaposition of digital media, and the various (and almost infinite) forms something can take once it’s been digitized. My piece layers different visual representations of audio files (of a piece of music, of the recorded “Align” conversation, of a rejected podcast theme I composed for my sister, as text) with images of my late father, who was an art teacher for 35 years and who died in 2021. Growing up, his student art shows were seminal experiences in my understanding of art and design.
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Padmini Chandrasekaran
Dichotomy of Change
2021
When two sides are so convinced they’re right, any attempt to align becomes a push and a pull, a warp or clash for any progress to be made. Similarly, the act of change in ourselves is a hesitant, brave and cyclical action — a contrast
between what feels safe and familiar and what is exciting and bold to reach a mysterious middle ground that could be neither or both.
Are you ready to make a shift? Even if it’s scary? Even if it changes you?
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Joshua Duttweiler
Where the earth doesn’t meet the sky
Inkjet print, projection installation, 2021
The desert of South Texas is alien, calm, and vast in its emptiness.
A summer trip across the border region where divisions are drawn in this otherwise blank space, forced in the desert sand. Split by a hot river, mountain ranges, and steel fences. Divisions built to give reason for poor treatment of others. The land offers no barriers to the sky, so why should we.
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