Jasmine Best (Greensboro, NC) | October 2021

Curation Doll draws power to protect so that we do not have to be strong. The doll figure has skin made of images of flowers arranged from Elsewhere’s own fabric collection. The era of these fabrics informs the aesthetic and associations of the florals. The actual flowers collected from the collection drape the doll and, it’s resting chair, and the frames on the wall creating a protective covering. The artist’s own family would make fabric dolls and place them on chairs both as showcases of skills previously only appreciated in a domestic context but what felt to be as protectors of a domestic space. The Doll figure sits relaxed and reserved in front of an abstracted family photo wall. Pulling more power from the idea of personal black curation in reference to an essay by Bell Hooks about how home photo walls were some of the only places Black people were able to control their own image in a gallery like space.

William Plummer (Kansas City, MO) | Exchange (Kansas City) | August 2021Tapping into the unseen historical and spectral forces at Elsewhere, this altered cabinet functions as a permeable screen by drawing attention to effects of light and air within the Ghost Room. Through this atmospheric exchange, the sculpture commands a theatrical presence while drawing attention to its contents; stockings, beads, and pearls that drift and sway without the help of a body. "Perennial Channels" acknowledges the items we own that are meant to feel special or inspire wonder. From playful accessories to glass marbles, these things point at a commonality--the ways objects can undeniably reveal and reflect something about the people that have interacted with them.

Craig Deppen Auge (Kansas City, MO) | Exchange (Kansas City) | August 2021

This series of 20 sculptures and interventions incorporating textile scraps, collage, metal grid form, and other various collection materials can be viewed as For the most part, the artist has committed to using scraps and parts “as found” with no additional manipulation, just a focus on composition, constructed intuitively. This series of works is the most closely connected to the artist’s current body of work outside of the museum. Within this setting, these are abstract poems honoring all who have drifted, and will drift, through Elsewhere; from previous residents all the way back to the boarding house days. In that broader sense, these may speak to our independent, yet collective, journey through this life, on this planet, and the “getting lost” elsewhere along the way. Other questions emerge, as the artist continues to think about the grid as the symbol of existing social structures, or more broadly, and the fabric as ourselves and how we navigate these systems. Then we can ask: are we dancing with the grid or fighting the grid? Are we caught in the grid or escaping the grid? The placement of these pieces and proximity to each other also begins to suggest they carry individual personalities, and are themselves transient beings, resting mostly in the Alone Zone and drifting down the hallway.

Craig Deppen Auge (Kansas City, MO) | Exchange (Kansas City) | August 2021

This series of 24 individual “sign posts” and/ or “flags” placed in the garden and spread throughout the museum explores the concept of way-finding and personal journey. Linked conceptually to one of the the artist’s other projects, Drifters, these embody the themes of the sojourner, “finding yourself,” or unexpectedly finding yourself “elsewhere.” These clusters of lean, wordless directional or distance markers are similar, but abstracted versions, to those you might find on an old, wooded footpath. The difference being that there is no explicit direction, only a formal, coded visual language speaking of what is on the path ahead, or what lies behind. These works were constructed intuitively and urgently, using only collection scraps and hardware, giving them a folksy, southern yard-art quality. The artist is interested in the concept of the nexus, and Elsewhere certainly acts as a nexus for community and creativity. But it remains open to interpretation, and its direction is ever-changing. This project suggests all of that; a sculptural play on the puzzling, multi-vocal outlooks found at Elsewhere, perhaps pointing to a multitude of other "elsewheres."

Charis Fleshner (Loveland, CO) | June 2021

Personification and anthropomorphism of inanimate objects has always been apart of how I physically and emotionally navigate the world and connect to objects. There is actually a branch of metaphysics called object-oriented ontology that studies this. During my time sewing at Elsewhere, I became irreversibly attached to a vintage, collection Pfaff sewing machine, even naming it "Jaime". This work is simply my love note to Jaime, me amore! The fabric hearts used in the installation are hidden somewhere in Elsewhere.