In The Gallery Nov. 1: The Dead Ocean Scrolls and Other Possible Futures
What: “The Dead Ocean Scrolls and Other Possible Futures Exhibit” by Beverly Naidus
Where: The Gallery at Tacoma Community College (Building 4)
When: Nov. 1 – Dec. 10, 2021
Hours: 10 a.m. – 5 p.m. Monday – Friday
Parking: Visitor parking is available in Lot G
Check-in: Visitors who are not students or employees must check in with Campus Safety in Building 14 before entering The Gallery. Masks are required at all times on campus.
With “The Dead Sea Scrolls and Other Possible Futures,” University of Washington Tacoma Art Professor Emeritus Beverly Naidus presents her first Tacoma exhibit since 2004. In her Artist’s Statement, Naidus says that this exhibit emerges from a lifetime spent creating work that seeks to heal personal and collective trauma, and that the exhibit speaks to the precarity of this moment on our planet and imagines strategies for responding to many of the challenges we currently face. A selection of past artworks that have grounded the artist in the present moment is also included.
The exhibit features “scrolls” hand-sewn from plastic re-purposed from a previous exhibit titled “We Almost Didn’t Make It,” exhibited in Seattle and in Brighton, England in 2018.
Naidus says that during the pandemic she reflected on the impossibility of healing those traumas and was reminded that thinking things are impossible to solve is part of the problem. She took inspiration from speculative fiction and the Emergent Strategy Institute and began reimagining antidotes to the current dystopia. This practice required writing, meditation, working in the dirt of her garden, and processing the complex layers of emotions via painting and sewing.
Naidus states that she intends for her art to “help us dream into a better future,” and her new exhibit encourages viewers to see our seemingly intractable problems as interconnected, poses some of the questions we should be asking, and suggests a range of possible answers.
“The Dead Sea Scrolls and Other Possible Futures” will be on display in The Gallery at Tacoma Community College through Dec. 10, 2021.