Threshold

We are on the threshold of change, and it’s currently being defined by the extreme intensity of this sociocultural moment–a global pandemic, the social uprising for Black liberation in America, the transformation of every system we thought was immovable; from museums to universities, to police forces, to the way we shake hands (now called the elbow bump). This intensity was absorbed, processed, and exceeded by the 2020 MFA Interdisciplinary Arts graduates at Sierra Nevada University, resulting in an exhibition that serves as a portal into process and processing. Adam Longatti, Kelly Sinclair Vicars, Kenneth Claybaugh, Kristina Berry, Lisa Freeman, Lizzie Thibodeau, and Thomas Putzier each had to navigate a complex, uncertain landscape to produce art in the time of COVID-19. It wasn’t easy, and these artists developed two differing strategies of investigation and production—sending their gaze towards both the internal and external environment.