Open Source Gallery presents maybe the sun, a multimedia exhibition by George Ferrandi

As we emerge from the pandemic, we are all living with unprocessed grief. We have grafted a thin skin of normalcy over our everyday lives, but our sense of loss continues to lie just below this delicate surface, leaving us less resilient to other challenges. maybe the sun offers an immersive framework for collective reflection on what we have lost and learned. This exhibition features drawings, sculpture, video and a recurring interactive live event: we are each other’s atmosphere, a collaborative tool for processing our un-commemorated losses and un-celebrated victories.

we are each other’s atmosphere evolved from conversations and consultations with grief counselor Shea Wingate, LCSW, and could be described as Mahjong meets guided meditation at a séance. Guests sign up in advance to participate in this gamified ritual conducted by Ferrandi for small groups. This intimate, interactive experience provides a cathartic structure for collectively orchestrating our conceptions of the pandemic, and reliving—with appropriate fanfare—moments of unseen victories and unrecognized accomplishments.

Drawings from the Receivers series aim to absorb and reflect viewers’ emotional experiences of the pandemic, in the way that objects often act as silent witnesses to our histories and repositories of our resonant moments.

In the video This World, Ferrandi visits the National Aquarium with her 90-year-old mother. The artist reads lines from a poem by Mary Oliver about the futility of looking for something in the natural world that isn’t special, as her mother struggles to repeat the lines, with her failed attempts demonstrating frustrating, hilarious, and charming truths.

Photos by Stefan Hagen.
Imminent Joy portraits by George Ferrandi.