With brightly colored country-style dresses, recycled materials and graceful movements, the OSU Urban Arts Space exhibits “Domestic Matters” showcases the everyday life of the agrarian South through mixed media and dance.
Mair Culbreth, currently working on her doctorate in dance at Ohio State, and Nicole Bauguss, who worked on the installations, were the creative forces behind the exhibit. Both lived and worked in San Francisco prior to moving to Columbus and “have been conceptualizing this work for several years.”
“The installation is an integration of our ideas so we do not necessarily separate out which part belongs to whom,” Culbreth said.
The exhibit deals with gender issues, memory, the complexities of the home and displacement.
“(Domestic Matters is) all ideas and all complex histories that we all have in some way,” said Leigh Lotocki, communication coordinator for the event and one of the dancers.
Recycled materials and everyday functional pieces were prominent in the exhibit.
Photographs of decrepit and aging homes, rooms with broken furniture and shattered windows covered three walls of one installation. Another room had hanging jars with a video projection of a woman kneading dough. There was a clothes line in front of what looked like the outside wall of a cottage.
The dancers, some from OSU and some professional, moved their way throughout the arts space, dodging and maneuvering around spectators as needed. Several different solos were performed throughout the space.
“To me it was as if the dancers were telling the forgotten stories of the inanimate, worn trinkets and exploring, blurring the boundaries of what is masculine and feminine,” said Liz Celeste, deputy director of the Arts Space. “The whole night was really beautiful.”
The exhibit will run every Thursday throughout the month of March at the OSU Urban Arts Space, located at 50 W. Town St.
