A Pot Nudged Into Oblivion
Curated by Jenn Cacciola

Artist Reception
Saturday October 7, 6-8:30pm

On view by appt
October 7 - November 18, 2023


A Pot Nudged Into Oblivion features work by Annika Earley, Shabnam Jannesari, Elena Kalkova, Zahra Pars, Meriel Pitarka, Cynthia Reynolds, Hannah Eve Rothbard, and Jen Schoonmaker, curated by Jenn Cacciola. 


This exhibition is a continuation of the curatorial & community project formerly known as Ice Cream Social. 


"...So many of us are breathless,
you know, like me
kneeling to collect the pottery shards
of a house plant my elbow has nudged
into oblivion. What if I sigh,
and the black earth beneath me scatters
like insects running from my breath?
Am I a god then? Am I insane
because I worry about the disassembling of earth
regularly? I walk more softly now..."
- Jamaal May, Respiration


In this exhibition, eight artists handle modes of fear and fragility while either upholding or peeling away facades of fortitude. Mechanisms of warning are scratched, punched, scrawled, and lovingly arranged. Knee-jerk reactions and masterful plans share the room, mocking one another's attempts. To fear loss is to document, sear into memory, to reincarnate. Certain terrors set familiar triggers into action — a cycle ensues. It gets into the bloodline, passing from one young buck to the next. What if inside this cycle exists a fractal pattern of ferociously-protective enfolding around those slightly more scared? Hundred-year-old tree rings huddled to one another, curve after curve. To name an amorphous fear sets its edges apart from all else, making it small against the world. There are some rules of engagement: you may lay like settled snow if at the feet of a brown bear, but a black bear will require your most monstrous form.


About Curator Jenn Cacciola

Jenn Cacciola is a NY and CT-based artist, curator, and educator originally hailing from Port Chester, NY. She received a Bachelor of Science in Visual Arts from SUNY Purchase School of Art + Design in 2015. She is an on-going member of NYC Crit Club and engages in curation and community building among artists as the Co-Founder/Program Director of Ice Cream Social, and co-curator of Openings Artist Collective, and P2P Curatorial. She has been awarded Artist-in-Residence positions at the Sheen Center For Thought & Culture, Manassas National Battlefield Park, and in virtual residencies with Socially Distant Art, Crisis Residency, World of Co, and Cel del Nord. Her works can be found in the National Parks Foundation’s public collection and in private collections within the United States and Europe. She has exhibited at BRIC Arts, the Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts, Equity Gallery, Atlantic Gallery, National Association of Women Artists Gallery, Howard County Arts Council, Ely Center of Contemporary Art, among other spaces. She has previously taught PreK-12th grade Art in NYC schools, and worked as an Art Educator with the New-York Historical Society, the NARS Foundation, and Wingspan Arts. She has also assisted in art forensic and conservation projects for collections at the Hispanic Society of America Museum, PepsiCo Sculpture Garden, and TONDO Art Forensics Lab in Budapest, Hungary.



All images copyright miranda arts project space.

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