Constellation
2021-24: “Constellation” is a project that began with individual conversations on grief, loss and hope with five friends. The shared experience informed an artwork that attempted to hold these exchanges in memory. The project eventually broadened by inviting a wider community into the exchange to share their own stories of loss on a virtual platform. This widening of the conversation in turn shaped the artwork into a piece that held a greater collective history.
In its visual form “Constellation” is a 5x8’ wall piece constructed from aluminum mesh with mixed media applied to the surface. Names of those who have passed on into death or otherwise are written onto areas of the work. These include names given from the original five participants that started this project. And also include names submitted by the public through an online forum. To present names across the work evokes the influence of those who are memorialized, bringing into focus their lives in the immediate moment.
As “Constellation” is presented in different sites across the US, in-person visitors are invited to write names onto the artwork of whom they wish to remember. Accompanying stories were recorded in this project and are displayed to read on-site and an opportunity to leave one’s own story is available. “Constellation” acts both as a reflective encounter and an object that holds an active and on-going narrative. In engaging with remembrance the encouragement of hope and peace is offered.
Olga is an artist based in the Los Angeles area. She is interested in creating site-specific installations that raise a heightened awareness to a space. She seeks to create a sensory experience that engages on multiple levels through color, form and size. She looks for her works to draw a viewer in through the narrative of a constructed environment. Through her works, Lah wants to explore the notion of reality. She is ultimately attempting to create a new language about the nature of existence, and engage with the idea of a transcendence that points to a truer response within ambiguity over a precarious nature of what is considered as absolute.
A joint project of the Ministry in the City HUB and Walls-Ortiz Gallery at City Seminary, the Creative Community Care Virtual Residency brought together socially-engaged Christian creatives from New York City, Indianapolis, Chicago, Los Angeles, Charlotte, and Corsicana (Tx) for peer mentor support, learning, and sharing. In 2021, residents developed local projects in their respective cities, exploring creative practices of care in the context of community. Projects engaged the concerns and questions of the pandemic period (mutual aid, care re-imagined for social distance, etc.) at the intersection of the arts, learning, faith, and the city. In 2022, the resident pairs offered public online workshops. Starting in 2024, Creative Community Care, a traveling group exhibition of the artwork will be on display with related programming in cities across North America. In 2024, the exhibition has been on view in Santa Ana, CA (March 1-5), Houston, TX (August 7-23), and will be in St. Paul, MN (November 1 - December 15). In 2025, it will go to Indianapolis, IN (March - April), Charlotte, NC (May-June), and possibly Boston, MA (November). For 2026, we anticipate a stop in Toronto, ON (Canada) before a final show in New York City.
I pray for healing from generational trauma, relief from rising costs of living, and peace in the midst of the unknown.