This exhibition explores the possibilities of agency for the individual and the collective, within our conceptual, physiological, and geographical landscapes. Diptychs of photographic landscapes embellished with oil paint correspond with eight musical compositions playing continuously in the room, which are translated into a visual score of oil on canvas, while sculptures double as seating are arranged to create opportunities for group listening and observation. The relationships created by these overlapping disparate-seeming gestures intervene with entrenched ideas about the nature and interpretation of the art object, its authorship, and its viewership.

‍

‍

Zekarias Musele Thompson (b. 1983) is an artist based in Oakland, CA, and Reykjavík, IS, often working with sonic composition, photography, collaborative group practice & performance, writing, and mark-making. Their practice is concerned with humanity’s conceptual and emotional organizational structures and how we bring them into material form. They have presented work at venues including the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, The Lab, Museum of the African Diaspora, Land and Sea and Eternal Now in the Bay area — as well as Associate Gallery, Ásmundarsalur, and Open in Reykjavík, Iceland. Zekarias is a co-founder of Working Name Studios, a collectively owned and organized arts institution with the mission of building institutional stability and equity for underrepresented creative practices, ideas, and people. They are currently an MFA candidate in the Department of Art Practice at UC Berkeley.