Endless Rest is an exhibition about personal myth and self-preservation. Suspending the viewer in liminal space, Blair Bogin and Jessica Harvey conjure a disembodied protagonist through abstract narratives, hinting at the self-made monuments we wrap ourselves in to preserve a particular history. Endless Rest is abstractly inspired by the mythical telltale of Jane Byrd McCall Whitehead, the matriarch of a failed utopian community for artists located in Woodstock, New York in the early twentieth century.

Harvey’s photography is joined with re-created archival materials to create a portal into an intimate, textural world. Her photographs frame recognizable objects and natural materials that hint to a point-of-view that is indiscernible outside the provided frame. Included in the exhibition are a series of vessels and a typed letter. A manifesto of heartbreak, the letter describes the intense feelings of a jilted lover coming to terms with the permanence of a failed relationship.

Using DIY forms of live video animation and layered audio, Bogin tampers with Harvey’s source material to insert distorted and disembodied narratives. Weaving apparitions in and out of the gallery, the intimacy of Bogin’s interactive ghost stories’ abate loneliness and potentially discombobulate the viewer with an erratic semblance of cut and paste images, layered and projected on the gallery wall.

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BLAIR BOGIN makes video, takes photo, writes and performs. Her work seeks to transform the individuals’ sense of singularity to a more pluralistic view.

More information about Blair Bogin can be found at blairbogin.com

JESSICA HARVEY is a Chicago-based artist who explores the myths we create for ourselves and nature while trying to preserve a more desired history. Harvey received an MFA in Photography from Cranbrook Academy of Art in 2009 and was awarded a Fulbright Grant to Iceland for the 2011-2012 year. She has attended residencies at ACRE, Anderson Ranch, Byrdcliffe Arts Colony, The Luminary, and Vermont Studio Center. Recent and upcoming solo exhibitions include shows at Black Hills State University (Spearfish, SD), Hardesty Arts Center (Tulsa, OK), and Good Weather (North Little Rock, AR).

More information about Jessica Harvey can be found at thejessicaharvey.com

JENNIFER L. MEFFORD is a Chicago-based curator and producer. She received a MA in Arts Administration and Policy from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2012. Mefford is a curatorial fellow with Rapid Pulse International Performance Art Festival and serves on the curatorial board of ACRE.
In New Orleans, Mefford was the Performing Arts Manager at the Contemporary Arts Center (CAC) where she presented theater, dance, film and music. Other significant CAC projects include: Prospect.1 New Orleans, National Endowment for the Arts’ Jazz Masters Live program and curatorial member of the National Performance Network’s Performing Americas Program, a partnership between U.S., Latin America and the Caribbean. In 2011, she supported the launch of RADAR L.A. an international contemporary theater festival in downtown Los Angeles.

More information about Jennifer Mefford can be found at jennifermefford.com

ACRE (Artists’ Cooperative Residency and Exhibition) was founded in 2010 with the ambition to provide the arts community with an affordable, cooperative, and dialogue-oriented residency program. The residency itself takes place each summer in rural southwest Wisconsin and brings together artists from across disciplines and levels of experience to create a regenerative community of cultural producers. Over the course of the following year ACRE endeavors to further support its residents by providing venues for exhibitions, idea exchange, interdisciplinary collaboration, and experimental projects.

More information about ACRE can be found at www.acreresidency.org

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Tags: ACRE Projects, Blair Bogin, Jessica Harvey