George Ferrandi: maybe the sun
October 28-November 30, 2022
Opening Hours: Thurs+Fri: 4-6pm, Sat+Sun: 2-6pm (closed Thanks Giving Weekend 11/24 11/27)
we are each other’s atmosphere:
Sign-up for live event we are each other’s atmosphere
Friday, October 28, 7-9pm
Sunday, October 30, 6-8pm
Saturday, November 5, 6-8pm
Sunday, November 6, 6-8pm
Friday, November 11, 7-9pm
Saturday, November 12, 6-8pm
Sunday, November 13, 2-4pm
Open Source Gallery presents maybe the sun, a multimedia exhibition by George Ferrandi
As we emerge from the pandemic, we are all living with unprocessed grief. We have grafted a thin skin of normalcy over our everyday lives, but our sense of loss continues to lie just below this delicate surface, leaving us less resilient to other challenges. maybe the sun offers an immersive framework for collective reflection on what we have lost and learned. This exhibition features drawings, sculpture, video and a recurring interactive live event: we are each other’s atmosphere, a collaborative tool for processing our un-commemorated losses and un-celebrated victories.
we are each other’s atmosphere evolved from conversations and consultations with grief counselor Shea Wingate, LCSW, and could be described as Mahjong meets guided meditation at a séance. Guests sign up in advance to participate in this gamified ritual conducted by Ferrandi for small groups. This intimate, interactive experience provides a cathartic structure for collectively orchestrating our conceptions of the pandemic, and reliving—with appropriate fanfare—moments of unseen victories and unrecognized accomplishments.
Drawings from the Receivers series aim to absorb and reflect viewers’ emotional experiences of the pandemic, in the way that objects often act as silent witnesses to our histories and repositories of our resonant moments.
In the video This World, Ferrandi visits the National Aquarium with her 90-year-old mother. The artist reads lines from a poem by Mary Oliver about the futility of looking for something in the natural world that isn’t special, as her mother struggles to repeat the lines, with her failed attempts demonstrating frustrating, hilarious, and charming truths.
George Ferrandi is an American artist whose performance, installation and participatory projects often explore experimental approaches to narrative. Employing a unique humor and a deep sense of humanity, her work ranges in form and scale from a simple gesture—like resting her head on the shoulder of a stranger on the subway—to a giant spectacle, like parading with hundreds of people through the streets of South Philly. It’s often a collaborative experiment in storytelling, with participants becoming performers in the narrative or even creating it.
Ferrandi is the Creative Director of Jump!Star, a multimedia initiative that uses the eventual transition of our North Star as a catalyst for building a better future and for planning ceremonial traditions for the people who will live there. Jump!Star has been awarded a National Endowment for the Arts Our Town Grant, and was featured in Documenta 15. George’s work has been performed/exhibited at venues such as the World Museum (Vienna), the International House of Japan (Tokyo), Brunnenpassage (Vienna), Abrons Arts Center (NY), The Kitchen (NY), Cinders Gallery (NY), McKinney Contemporary (Dallas), Wexner Center (Columbus), Harn Museum (Gainesville), Fleisher Art Memorial (Philadelphia), and Sluice (London). She is an NEA Fellow of the Japan-US Friendship Foundation, and has been awarded grants from the Franklin Furnace Fundwinners for Performance Art, MAP fund, Foundation for Contemporary Arts, Mid Atlantic Arts Council, and Kindle Project. Ferrandi teaches Sculpture and Performance Art periodically at Pratt Institute, Virginia Commonwealth University, and the Rhode Island School of Design. Since the pandemic, George has been producing George’s Lovely Variety, a monthly art dispatch.
Featured Photo by Michael Lindlow, Courtesy of George Ferrandi.
