small_bars: To Activate a Landscape is an interactive gallery exhibition, a workbook for facilitating creative workshops, and an ongoing series of instruction-based visual performances. In the presentation organized for the Farmer Family Gallery, Ry McCullough and Nick Satinover utilize their collaborative project small_bars as a generator of experiential forms and experimental activities. The space is divided into zones, each inviting the gallery visitor to engage in looking intently, listening carefully or to participate in an activity based on written instructions. Over the course of the exhibition, the gallery will become populated with the accumulated visual residue of the work made in collaboration with the gallery community.

At the center of these encounters are images and notions of landscape. Whether from rural crossroads, urban intersections, plains, coastlines or mountains, our local landscape is a nexus of sensory experience, one which determines how we orient ourselves in each new place. The work of this exhibition is designed to provide a sort of wayfinding, to engage in something new, anchored to our internal compass and familiar horizon.

The exhibit runs from August 22-October 10, 2024, in the Farmer Family Gallery.