As artists, we share a meaningful connection in the ways we approach and absorb the world
around us. Our individual responses to our unique experiences of the world forge powerfully
distinct bodies of work. What we make, hints at our experiences and cultivates our shared
values of cherishing, honoring, and caring for the places we grow in and the land we move in.

Kate Collyer, Megan Porpeglia and I traveled in 2021 – internationally, nationally, or locally – from a one-month residency to a multi-day getaway to a brief vacation. We utilized the processes of observation, collection, and reflection while exploring each of our varying chosen environments. This is how the concept of Whispered Conversations started.

We sought to question our relationship to our “homes,” to honor the places that continue to hold
us, and to remember the landscapes that showed us our human scale. We each mapped terrain
by gathering items that encapsulated our memory of the journey. Each object becomes a
memento, a talisman imbued with feelings, energy, and spirit. It also serves as a type of
postcard, a token of place. Each artist responded to the micro terrain by creating a bundle of the
objects that helped make sense of how the land was perceived and questioned our relationship
to place. We agreed to walk a shared path: to have new eyes, to cultivate a steady slowness, to
gather and call forward more than the usual. We allowed the places we “think we know” to wear
us until we each could offer these reliquaries as a journaled response.

These sets of objects represent places and more importantly, specific moments. whispered
conversations’ objective is to tug at the indexical traces of each object. The artist who originally
gathered the object is the sole repository of the lived experience. However, as we transitioned to
the making phase, we each responded to the bundles prepared by the other wayfarers in
addition to our own assembled bundle. We did not attempt to articulate one another’s
experiences but rather we moved toward the possibility of a deeper understanding of separate
yet shared experiences.

The questions that guided us were:

What happens in the space between the human and the
place? Do we truly behold an environment, a landscape? What
are we capable of experiencing through someone else’s eyes?

whispered conversations is an individual and collective expedition. It is a practice of observing
and making. This is our call and response.

We're pleased to share our first exhibition as a collective at Stand4 Gallery in the Bay Ridge neighborhood of Brooklyn, NY. Click here for directions and gallery hours. The exhibition runs through Saturday, January 14, 2023. We will host a hybrid (in person and Zoom) Roundtable on Saturday, January 7, 2023 from 3-4 pm.