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<\/a><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\nInstallation view of Spectra 2 <\/em>at Gallery 1313. Photo: Phil Anderson<\/p>\n\n\n\n Postponed from 2020, Spectra 2<\/em> (Visible or Invisible Cities<\/em>) represents an open yet intentional motif relating to our current reality. Curator Jessica Thalmann drew inspiration from Italo Calvino\u2019s Invisible Cities<\/em> (1972), an anti-novel offering expansive renditions of metropolis based in ideas such as memory and desire. For Calvino, cities can be infinite, intertwining, conceptual, and secret. Such malleable city forms may be more pertinent to the contemporary atomized landscape than when the book was originally published, and Thalmann clearly sees this parallel. \u201cI was interested in how the works in the show meditate on the ways we see, embody, and remember the places around us, often making visible what cannot literally be seen in the urban and natural landscape,\u201d she explains. While human presence is not the central focus of this collection, there appears a familiar soothing resonance. The exposure and framing of Lilianne Schneider\u2019s Caral Invisible<\/em> (2020) <\/a>series resembles the settings of Judy Dater\u2019s entrancing selfportraits from the early 80s. In some of Scheider\u2019s pictures, an anthropomorphic quality presents itself in the earth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Lilianne Schneider, Caral Invisible, 2020<\/p>\n\n\n\n Grace Wang’ photos are also striking, ranging from faraway, emotive, and candid portraits to strangely angled shots of remote landscapes. The subject in Mary <\/em>(2020), slyly crouched in a body of water, looks directly into the audience\u2019s eyes, suggesting the interconnectedness between the psychic and the physical as well as the possibility of full integration between human and habitat. Wang\u2019s least content-rich photo, Daydreamers <\/em>(2020), <\/a>does not require human subjects to capture the emotionality of recollecting presence. Its humble and obscure presentation functions like an impressionist painting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Grace Wang, Daydreamers, 2020<\/p>\n\n\n\n Spectra 1<\/em> is a thematically free yet connectively thought-provoking collection of images. Together these photos speak from a place of slow change. Unintentionally, almost every artist in this group portrays aspects of unlearning and learning to adapt\u2014to finding solace and voice in the many confusingly contradictory and randomized scenarios of today. The photos reveal a new appreciation of sanctuary and a new understanding of the public sphere. In this exhibition, pieces of introspection look interestedly toward a matured uncertainty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Two notable artists in this group investigate tensions between time and place. Shaney Herrmann\u2019s Sale Agreed<\/em> (2018) details a significant moment of loss and exploration that took place before the pandemic, yet speaks volumes to this shared historical moment and its consequences. Sale Agreed<\/em> is an intimate study of a home in transition. Herrmann describes planning to visit her grandmother in Dublin who passed away shortly before her arrival. The project takes place in the days Herrmann spent alone in her grandmother\u2019s home before it was sold. Awash in sentimentality and memory, the collection feels like a cross between a grounded familial visit and a dream\u2014uncanny in nature, yet highly personal and belonging to only you. A warmth hovers over the space as pastel pinks dress the home and yard in flowers and light. Pieces of hair, sheets on the line, and private views give access to a relatable day-to-day pace, yet remain oddly mysterious in their sacred detachment. Herrmann is extremely generous and sincere to share such a delicate point of view.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Shaney Herrmann, Nana\u2019s, 2018<\/p>\n\n\n\n Almost similar in the appreciation of a meaningful and changing space, David Scriven\u2019s <\/a>art looks toward the personalized public domain in Alexandra Park<\/em> (2020).<\/a> Silver tinsel sits unassuming on a metal fence and coral morning glory flowers pour from low windows, seeming to represent the ability to call upon agency and nesting in an unpredictable world. For the past year, Scriven captured a park sentenced to demolition, making way for a new housing development. Clearly, a special public domesticity will be lost in this action but forever preserved in Scriven\u2019s work. The series points to the process of adorning and all its simple yet significant joys\u2014doing the best with what one has. The solitude of these photos is poignant, yet celebratory of all things. With this perspective, even a fire hydrant in construction deserves the perfectly placed spotlight of the sun.<\/p>\n\n\n\n David Scriven, Alexandra Park 2, 2020<\/p>\n\n\n\n Another two significant artists centre around relationships between humanity and environment: from the sublime to the minute.<\/a> Fred Lum\u2019s series, ranging from 2016 to 2020, makes the night sky feel as close as bed blankets. The clarity of these skyscapes gives a glimpse of the natural abundance hiding behind airborne pollution. A complex relationship and clear attachment exist between humanity and the ethereal infinite. Developing a narrative between windows and the universe, frames become highly significant and provide not only perspective but required distance from the utterly unknowable. Lum\u2019s photos hint toward a certain accessibility through distillation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Fred Lum, Looking for comet NEOWISE, 2020<\/p>\n\n\n\n<\/a><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<\/a><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<\/a><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<\/a><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<\/a><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n