Mandeville Gallery

Upcoming Exhibition Opening Soon!

"Addenda: Gina Adams, Merritt Johnson and Sonya Kelliher-Combs" - January 29- June 12, 2022

Custodians of archives wield great power and responsibility in considering who might be left out, disempowered or silenced in the creation of a specific narrative by those who use their records. Addenda centers interpretation and augmentation of past and present through the archive in an effort to construct a fuller future.

Adams, Johnson and Kelliher-Combs, draw on history, cultural traditions, and archives, along with a strong belief in seeking alternative narratives, to create artworks that exist as a record of unconsidered perspectives and often unrecognized pasts.

For this exhibition, these artists were asked to create artwork in response to a collection of archival materials held in the college archives, which details the life of missionary and the first general agent of education for the territory of Alaska, Sheldon Jackson (Class of 1855). The resulting artworks are featured in the Mandeville Gallery alongside additional pieces by the three artists. These works all pose questions about the purpose of archives and how the artists’ active additions to these collections can illuminate the people often silenced by what has been recorded in the past.

https://muse.union.edu/mandeville/project/addenda-gina-adams-merritt-johnson-sonya-kelliher-combs/

Image: Merritt Johnson, "When the world turned upside down long enough for Water to move and catch fire and wipe out the ink lines that divide, claim, kill and bury," 2021, oil and alkyd on panel, 36 x 48 inches, Courtesy of Accola Griefen Fine Art, New York City and the artist, © Merritt Johnson