You are warmly invited to the opening reception of Accumulate, an immersive communal experience by Jessie Houff. Meet the artist and be among the first to explore the exhibition. We can’t wait to see you there!

Accumulate

How do our life experiences influence the way we live? How do positive connections encourage us to thrive? Are we resilient or do we dwell in heartache? No matter the answers, it is all part of our development as humans.

This piece reflects both the agony as well as the promise of a healthy future. Accumulate is an interactive manifestation of collective energy curated for connection and play. These energies evaporate, creating a special environment. It is a cycle: pages accumulate, they are released into the air, and the process repeats. It grows over time as more souls contribute. You are encouraged to add to the pile. What heartaches or joys do you bring to this space? I hope this piece sparks something in you, viewer, whether it be happiness, intrigue, even pain. Let’s experience it together.

About the Artist

Multidisciplinary artist, Jessie Houff, was born in Fairfax County, Virginia and raised in the Shenandoah Valley. She grew up with values rooted in family, travel, and spirituality. Jessie's primary disciplines include papermaking, book arts, printmaking, and installation. Jessie is an Adjunct Faculty and Communications Manager at Wesley Theological Seminary in Washington, DC. She received her Master of Fine Art in Community Art from Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) in Baltimore, Maryland. She enjoys diving deeply into her spiritual roots living a peaceful, minimalist life, buying only what is needed, reusing what she can, and spreading goodness wherever she goes. When Jessie is not at home or in the studio, you can most likely find her buried in a vintage book store drinking a café au lait, dreaming of being in a Gene Kelly movie, and planning a fun evening with friends, charcuterie, and games.

Join us for a special closing event on Tuesday, September 17th at the Dadian Gallery as we celebrate Un/familiar Terrain{s} with Michael Takeo Magruder.

Un/familiar Terrain{s} is a new exhibition by British-American visual artist Michael Takeo Magruder that has been created through a sophisticated partnership between artist and Artificial Intelligence (AI). This creative ‘collaboration’ transforms personal footage captured on first generation AI-enabled smartphones into three otherworldly installations, each rooted in specific places of renowned natural beauty. In the works, every single frame of the source material is revised, reworked, and rebuilt into digital prints and algorithmic videos which recast these captured moments as uncanny encounters. In this way, like painters, photographers, and cinematographers who have harnessed technology to transform terrains into expressive landscapes, the invisible work of the AI allows people to experience more than there ever was, expanding both time and space.

Un/familiar Terrain{s} infuses these leading-edge AI systems with traditional artistic practices to reimagine the world anew and, in doing so, pushes visitors to question the organic nature of their own memories and the unsettling notions of automatic processing, misattribution, and reconstruction.

Michael Takeo Magruder (b.1974, US/UK, www.takeo.org) is a visual artist and researcher whose practice utilises Information Age technologies and systems to examine our networked, media-rich world. In the last 25 years, his art has been shown in over 300 exhibitions in 35 countries, and has received extensive support within the UK, US, and EU. He is represented by Gazelli Art House in Mayfair, London.

Takeo’s recent projects include Imaginary Cities, a solo exhibition creatively exploring digital maps drawn from the British Library’s One Million Images from Scanned Books collection. In 2020, he was the first ever artist-in-residence at the UK National Archives where he reflected upon the institution’s ongoing digital transformation and what constitutes an archive in the 21st century. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Takeo was virtual artist-in-residence at the Henry Luce III Center for the Arts & Religion in Washington DC where he investigated social and ethical issues surrounding the international health crisis. He is presently MDI Biological Laboratory’s inaugural artist-in-residence and is developing a new body of artwork in-dialogue with the institute’s world-class research community for its Arts Meets Science programme.

You are invited to the opening reception of Un/familiar Terrain{s}. Join us in the Dadian Gallery on Thursday, May 30, for a first look at the exhibition and an opportunity to meet the artist. We look forward to seeing you there!

Un/familiar Terrain{s} is a new exhibition by British-American visual artist Michael Takeo Magruder that has been created through a sophisticated partnership between artist and Artificial Intelligence (AI). This creative ‘collaboration’ transforms personal footage captured on first generation AI-enabled smartphones into three otherworldly installations, each rooted in specific places of renowned natural beauty. In the works, every single frame of the source material is revised, reworked, and rebuilt into digital prints and algorithmic videos which recast these captured moments as uncanny encounters. In this way, like painters, photographers, and cinematographers who have harnessed technology to transform terrains into expressive landscapes, the invisible work of the AI allows people to experience more than there ever was, expanding both time and space.

Un/familiar Terrain{s} infuses these leading-edge AI systems with traditional artistic practices to reimagine the world anew and, in doing so, pushes visitors to question the organic nature of their own memories and the unsettling notions of automatic processing, misattribution, and reconstruction.

Michael Takeo Magruder (b.1974, US/UK, www.takeo.org) is a visual artist and researcher whose practice utilises Information Age technologies and systems to examine our networked, media-rich world. In the last 25 years, his art has been shown in over 300 exhibitions in 35 countries, and has received extensive support within the UK, US, and EU. He is represented by Gazelli Art House in Mayfair, London.

Takeo’s recent projects include Imaginary Cities, a solo exhibition creatively exploring digital maps drawn from the British Library’s One Million Images from Scanned Books collection. In 2020, he was the first ever artist-in-residence at the UK National Archives where he reflected upon the institution’s ongoing digital transformation and what constitutes an archive in the 21st century. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Takeo was virtual artist-in-residence at the Henry Luce III Center for the Arts & Religion in Washington DC where he investigated social and ethical issues surrounding the international health crisis. He is presently MDI Biological Laboratory’s inaugural artist-in-residence and is developing a new body of artwork in-dialogue with the institute’s world-class research community for its Arts Meets Science programme.

Join us May 11 for part 1 of a conversation on parenthood and archives between Mojdeh Rezaeipour and Mēlani N. Douglass.

Curator, conceptual artist and poet Mēlani N. Douglass is the founder of the award-winning Family Arts Museum - a migratory institution focused on the celebration of family as fine art, home as curated space, and community as gallery. Inspired by the birth of her daughter, Mēlani started her own museum, reimagined her studio practice, and refined her innovative approach to community engagement, audience development, and exhibition design. Mēlani anchors her work in the understanding that we are the answers and the medicine we seek. Solutions are encoded in our dna and through ritual, our “ancestral technology” - a phrase coined as a part of her graduate work - is revealed. Mēlani actively works to reveal this technology through her art practice, parenting and every day life.

Mojdeh Rezaeipour (they/she) is an Iranian-born transdisciplinary artist and filmmaker who has been an artist in residence at @luceartsandreligion for the past three years.  Mojdeh’s archive-based, iterative practice bridges over a decade of their varied backgrounds as an architect, storyteller, and community organizer.   Her solo and collaborative projects have been exhibited nationally and internationally in a wide range of venues, from DIY project spaces to larger institutions. Mojdeh’s latest solo exhibition “Notebooks” is on display at the Dadian gallery and will be the site of this conversation.  

The Luce Center is pleased to partner with Sephardic Heritage International, DC (SHIN-DC) for the launch of Paradise Lost: The Art of Siona Benjamin. Anchored by the artist's dynamic installation, Exodus: I See Myself in You, this exhibition brings together iconic works from across her oeuvre to explore questions around the human pursuit of paradise—the elusive, alluring notion of an ideal permanent home—in an age of forced migration and displacement.

Join us at the Dadian Gallery on Thursday, February 15 for a special evening reception with the artist. This event is graciously sponsored by SHIN-DC and is open to the public. We look forward to seeing you there!

“I am in league with devils. I feel like an archaeologist sifting through the sands of time to uncover the old stories, the old myths, the old beliefs on which modern believers act…In my most recent bodies of work, I have reveled in the queerness—seen as devilish by modern religions—in my character.  I have bathed in the spirit of the ancients. Marduk and Thor, Brigit and Ra, Janus and Seth are only a few of the now mythologized gods of old. They are no longer held in the respect they were, but does that stop them from being gods? Is it simply time that morphs a god into a myth, and if so what of the current gods, and devils? Will they too just become stories told around a camp fire?” — Michael Petry

The Luce Center is pleased to host Rev Dr Travis Helms for a workshop on poetry as a resource for ministry. The workshop will be grounded in principles of close-reading techniques and includes both theoretical and practical elements. Participants will be inspired to imagine new ways of incorporating poetry into preaching, spiritual formation, and pastoral care. This event is open to the whole Wesley community, including alumni. Light refreshments will be served.

Join Rev. Dr. Travis Helms, the Luce Center’s 2022-23 creative-in-residence, for a special workshop designed to inspire and equip faith leaders towards creative approaches to mission and community engagement. We will begin by exploring key concepts around mission and imagination, with an emphasis on moving from theory to practice to poeisis. We’ll then dig into practical questions such as how to identify a community in need, launch a viable missional project, and sustain it through grass-roots fundraising, entrepreneurial collaboration, and strategic thinking—using LOGOS Poetry Collective as a case-study. The workshop is designed to be generative, and will incorporate exercises that allow participants to walk away with a workable vision and design for launching their own creative missional project!

This event is free and open to the public. Members of the Washington Theological Consortium and area clergy are especially welcome.

Join us in Wesley’s Oxam Chapel at 12:45 Tuesday, October 18th, to hear the Rev. Dr. Travis Helms read select poems, both published and from his current manuscript-in-progress. Immediately before his reading, Travis will be serving as guest preacher in Oxam Chapel for Wesley’s weekly community worship service. Come for the service, and stay for the poetry!

This event is free and open to the public.

The Luce Center is leading a major garden renewal project at Wesley Theological Seminary—and we’re inviting members and friends of the community to participate! Join us at our next working day in the Wesley garden as we continue our efforts to revitalize this precious resource, deepen practices of sustainability, and share in the joys of ecological care as a seminary community. This event is open to all regardless of gardening experience, and children are especially welcome.

All garden renewal working days will take place in the seminary garden, located behind Carroll Hall. A limited supply of gloves and tools will be available for volunteers to use.

This is the last week to see Living Sanctuary on display. All are welcome to join us this Tuesday, April 19 from 3:45-5pm for a closing reception.

We will have light refreshments and enjoy time together as we celebrate the closing of this space and the semester.

We hope to see you there!