Accumulate

An immersive, communal experience by Jessie Houff

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.

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.

The Luce Center is pleased to present Paradise Lost: The Art of Siona Benjamin, on display in the Dadian Gallery from February 13 to April 6, 2024. Anchored by the artist's dynamic installation, Exodus: I See Myself in You, this exhibition brings together iconic works from across Benjamin’s 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.

About the Artist

Siona Benjamin’s unique perspective as an Indian-American-Jewish artist inspires her to create art that represents her transcultural and multicultural narrative. Often featuring blue figures and vibrant colors, she illuminates cultural and religious symbols through various media. A two-time recipient of the prestigious Fullbright Fellowship, Siona has exhibited her work in galleries, museums, and sacred spaces around the world. She creates artworks for private and public spaces, and shares her story through speaking engagements.

Sacred Ground is an art exhibition that explores the deep connection of what it means to be a spiritual creator, an artist, and a child of God. Comprised of 14 Baltimore-based artists, Sacred Ground represents each artists' intersection of art and spirituality.

Co-curated by Jessie Houff and Sarah McCann .

Travel and displacement are recurring themes in the work of Güler Ates, who was born in Muş, Eastern Turkey, where she belonged to the oppressed Zazaki-speaking minority.  Ates’ multidisciplinary work explores a constellation of themes, including diasporic experience, the ambiguities of domestic space, and the legacies of colonialism.  Drawing upon her own experiences of displacement, Ates has collaborated extensively with members of immigrant and refugee communities.  She is inspired by both Sufi and Alevi religious and cultural traditions.

“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

Antonio McAfee addresses the complexity of representation by manipulating historical portraits, both formally and thematically. He often draws from African American history, from 19th century washerwomen to twentieth century funk icons, creating photographic collages with a haunting, tactile presence.

The Luce Center is proud to exhibit Stations of the Cross in the Oxnam Chapel, a series of 14 bold interpretations of this traditional theme by Alfonse Borysewicz. The artist often takes inspiration from theology, liturgy, and scripture, inspired by his Catholic faith. Over the course of his career, Borysewicz has created an impressive body of work that hangs not only in galleries and private collections but churches, monasteries and seminaries from Brooklyn to Grand Rapids.

Designed by the Luce Center’s community arts coordinator, this immersive installation invited visitors to experience personal and communal restoration in a shared sacred space set apart for prayer, reflection, and renewal.

Co-curated by UK filmmaker Julia Alcamo and DC curator Taylor Curry, this exhibit brought together artistic contributions from across the globe to shine a light on intersecting struggles for public health and racial equality.

Cheryl Agulnick Hochberg’s works on paper are based in travel, craft, and the act of paying attention. An immersive soundscape accompanied the six large-scale drawings and two wood cut prints in the gallery.

Steve Prince’s relief prints on paper candidly explore American history through the lens of faith, family, race, power and love.

Informed by the artist’s study of the Bible, these sculptures, paintings and monoprints are visual reflections on the wisdom contained within this ancient collection of sacred texts.