UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — The photo installation “Who Is to Say What Was There,” a collaboration between Zsuzsanna Nagy, adjunct faculty member in the School of Visual Arts, and James Kalsbeek, associate professor of architecture, will be on display from 7 to 9 p.m. Oct. 15 at the Workshop, located at 375 N. Pennsylvania Ave. in Centre Hall.
The images displayed were curated from Nagy’s work over the past 10 years. The individual photographs invite a “slow form of looking” that Nagy hopes will expand the experience into a layered, multi-sensory journey.
In her photo practice, Nagy said she uses the camera to render the observable into an impressionistic and subjective reality where shape and color, for their own sake, are the driving compositional components. She emphasizes form over subject matter, atmosphere over information.
Nagy said her work explores notions of familiarity, belonging and transience, and the photographs are imbued with a sense of absence, calm and quiet. Upending conventions of photographic representation speaks to an emotional and sensory experience of the world, she explained.
The images are accompanied by sound created by percussionist, multi-instrumentalist, composer and filmmaker Kevin Sims.
The installation was designed and built by Kalsbeek, whose decades-long engagement in projects of reclamation, reuse and demolition dovetails with his research interests in architectural hospice and the palliative care of buildings.
The School of Visual Arts is part of the College of Arts and Architecture, while the Department of Architecture is part of the Stuckeman School in the College of Arts and Architecture.