Exhibition at Oceanside Museum of Art
Announcing the inaugural exhibition of Memory is a Verb: Exploring Time and Transience at the Oceanside Museum of Art in California, January 28 - May 14, 2023.
The exhibition celebration is the evening of March 18, 2023, 5-7pm.
This exhibition is curated by Marisa Caichiolo, founder of Building Bridges Art Exchange, an international non-profit organization based in Santa Monica , CA.
Curatorial Statement
Memory is a Verb: Exploring Time and Transience is a new group exhibition to be showcased at the Oceanside Museum of Art reflecting on memory, nostalgia, time, and human identity through the lens of eleven female photographers.
The exhibition is deeply rooted in the profound disruption caused by the pandemic—a period that forced artists from different backgrounds and regions across the country to search within themselves as they embarked on a humbling human journey beautifully captured in photography, video, and interactive installations.
The resulting exhibition will allow visitors to engage in the creative process not only through sight but through sound as well.
Ultimately, the project’s goal is to reflect on how memories are formed, whether they exist as fixed reflections of reality or are subject to transformation over time. The featured artworks suggest that even concepts as universal as memory may change, shift, and re-define themselves as time goes by, and this often happens in provoking, powerful, and unimaginable ways.
Unsurprisingly, the past has its own unique way of infiltrating the present moment and forces all of us to re-examine the nature of our memories. Each art piece featured in this exhibition embarks on its own quest to recall the past—be it through an exploration of gender, discrimination, identity, diversity, patriarchy, violence, love, loss, death, family, or environmental issues—in order to deliver a timeline of events that viewers can reflect on.
But the idea that memory exists in the present moment is something that can also be applied to all the artworks presented. As a cohesive collection of works, the exhibition grounds memory as a vital concept in our fast-moving world.
The exhibition’s participating artists are Elizabeth Bailey, Annette LeMay Burke, Dena Eber, Sarah Hadley, Diane Hemingway, Susan Lapides, Annie Omens, Lori Ordover, Jennifer Pritchard, Rosalie Rosenthal, and Aline Smithson.
About the Curator
Marisa Caichiolo is an artist and curator who studied art history and curatorial studies. She holds a PhD in art history and psychology. Her research focuses broadly on the impact of social and political changes in society, especially cultural exchanges and researching cultural production as it fluctuates between theory and practice. She is the founder of Building Bridges Art Exchange, an international non-profit organization based in Santa Monica, Los Angeles. The foundation is a platform for critical thinking, researching, art residencies, education programs, and many other initiatives. She is also the Chief Curator of DiverseArtLA platform for Museums and Non Profits at the Los Angeles Art Fair.
Her numerous curatorial projects have been shown internationally, including MUSA Museum of Arts of Guadalajara (Mexico); Kirchner Cultural Center, Buenos Aires, (Argentina); DOX Center for Contemporary Arts , Prague (Czech Republic); Frost Science Museum, Miami (USA); PVAC Palos Verdes Art Center, Palos Verdes (California); Building Bridges Art Foundation,Los Angeles (California); KATARA Cultural Center, Doha (Qatar); Sharjah Museum of Contemporary Art, Dubai (United Arab Emirates); Anaheim Muzeo Museum and Cultural Center, Anaheim (California); Telefónica Art Foundation, Santiago (Chile); among many others.
For more information, see Oceanside Museum of Art.