The Travelling Light is an exhibition that seeks to understand the effects of political and bureaucratic machinations in and upon one’s personal life. Here, the artists reflect on inherited economies and examine the administrative detritus that gradually accumulates and marks the passage of time, the loss of love, and the dissolution of dreams. Together, they ask, “What do we do with a world we did not make but cannot escape?”
Nicole Kelly Westman revisits a childhood past-time: as a younger woman, she frequently arranged her coin collection into the likeness of a sister. A photograph of her giddily presenting her efforts becomes bittersweet. I feel nostalgic when I see the violet couch curtains and velour sweatpants clouded by film grain, but I can’t help thinking about the “Penny Sister” as a copper idol, an early infiltration of capitalist worldviews into the mind of a young dreamer. But then there is the desire for a sister, a way to escape loneliness, a longing for money to soothe and save.
EXHIBITION TEXT: The Travelling Light
COORDINATED BY: Steven Cottingham for The New Gallery
February, 2014