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From Executive Director Johanna Burton:

Recently one of our curators noted, “exhibitions are made through a series of conversations.” That idea of creative, thoughtful exchange struck home as we assembled this issue and our fall programs, and in the following pages you’ll discover how those conversations spark the work we do at the Wex every day.

Curator Daniel Marcus speaks with painter Jacqueline Humphries about how her new exhibition jHΩ1:) emerged from a series of discussions with guest curator Mark Godfrey and inquiries surrounding art, technology, and the Wex building itself.

You’ll also hear from interdisciplinary artist Hope Ginsburg about Meditation Ocean, an Artist Residency Award–supported project made in response to the impacts of climate change on our daily lives. It too emerges from a robust, ongoing series of conversations, in this case between Ginsburg, our Learning & Public Practice Director Dionne Custer Edwards, and Film/Video Studio Curator Jennifer Lange, among many others.

While Humphries and Ginsburg are engaged with our current moment, art is often created in deep dialogue with the past. In that spirit, film scholar Keith Corson examines the underappreciated influence of director Michael Schultz—the focus of an October retrospective—on American cinema. We also spend a moment with legendary guitarist Marc Ribot, who discusses his own remarkable history (with collaborators that include Tom Waits and The Black Keys) in advance of a new album and performance here in November.

Crucially, you’ll also gain insight into how the ways we hope to engage with you—as learners, members, and donors—are being reshaped by conversations we’re having centerwide about diversity, equity, inclusion, access, and of course, care.

I hope you find these conversations as meaningful as I do.

Film/Video Studio Journals: Hope Ginsburg

Jennifer Lange, Film/Video Studio Curator

A recurring feature of In Practice, the Film/Video Studio Journals offer a glimpse into the behind-the-scenes work of the Wexner Center’s Film/Video Studio residency program, as told by the artists themselves. While our focus is postproduction support, the studio prides itself on remaining nimble and creative enough to assist artists even in the earliest stages of research and development. This month’s contribution is from Hope Ginsburg, a Virginia-based artist in the very early stages of preproduction on Meditation Ocean, an ambitious new multichannel installation that combines footage and audio captured during a series of underwater meditation sessions. Supported through the studio and a Wexner Center Artist Residency Award, Hope’s installation, scheduled for presentation at the center in 2023, combines her interest in marine ecology and human wellness in an immersive gallery space intended for use by school groups and the greater community. Both the studio and the center’s Department of Learning & Public Practice will be collaborating with the artist on the conceptualization of the project as well as a series of related talks, workshops, and classes that will be an integral part of its presentation. While Hope has been preparing for production this fall, which she touches on below, we’ve received news that Meditation Ocean and its related programs at the Wex are the recipient of a grant from Ohio State’s Women & Philanthropy group!

“What better time to begin to tell the Meditation Ocean story than this very moment? I write with motel Wi-Fi, traveling to the first M.O. script-making workshop. This collaborative event will inform the first of the project’s meditation dives, set for a site visit off the coast of Key Largo, Florida, in just a few weeks. Pinpointing the start of a project like Meditation Ocean can be murky—three years in development, it is in other ways just getting started. What is abundantly clear is the catalytic role that the Wexner Center has played throughout the entire process. Meditation Ocean delves deeply into the capacity of mindfulness practice to build resilience through oceanic meditations and responsive terrestrial actions. The project builds on the momentum of recent climate-related installation works such as Land Dive Team: Bay of Fundy (2016), which proposes the practice of present-moment awareness with equanimity for coping with catastrophic climate change, and the collaborative Swirling (2019), which offers labor with other species—in this case communities of hard corals—as a path toward shared survival. Both of these works were edited at the Wexner Center, and I can unequivocally say that they would not have been realized without the support of the Film/Video Studio. Meditation Ocean was born of the idea to hybridize this recent video installation format in my work with long-standing participatory and pedagogical elements. With the financial support of an Artist Residency Award, the Film/Video Studio’s significant postproduction resources, and the partnership of the center’s newly minted Department of Learning & Public Practice, I can’t imagine a better place to make this project than the interdisciplinary laboratory of the Wex. From this vantage point there is a vast amount to do in preparation for the 2023 exhibition premiere, and I look forward to seeing and sharing where the M.O. current flows from here.”—Hope Ginsburg