Peng Wu, Eleven Years, 2024. Handwritten with the clay casting of Wu's head from 12 years ago. Variable dimension. Courtesy of the artist.

Extraordinary Elsewhere

On View June 7, 2025 - February 1, 2026

Programs

Opening reception: August 23rd, 1 - 5 PM

1:00 - 2:00 pm Tour of the exhibition with the Curator and the artists

3:30 - 5:00 pm Performances, art activities and refreshments

Artist Spotlight tours: On weekends, join the artists for a gallery talk exploring their work and creative process. Artist Spotlight Tours are free with admission and no reservations are required. Full schedule coming soon!

Featured artists: 

Dahn Gim, Ivonne Yáñez, Mayumi Amada, Peng Wu, Prima Jalichandra-Sakuntabhai, Rituparna Rana, Roshan Ganu, Shafrin Islam, and Ziba Rajabi. 

Curator: Zoe Cinel

What do you pack when leaving home for a long journey? What do you learn and what do you contribute? When placed in unfamiliar spaces - liminal, exceptional ones - how do you find yourself? What objects, stories, rituals do you carry with you to connect with memories, and to relate with others? This exhibition features artworks created by international artists based in Minnesota, whose practices are distributed across a variety of media. Mirrors and vessels of attempts to belong while in motion, these media are transient by nature (dance, storytelling, poetry), responsive to place and time (site-specific, interactive or participatory installations), hybrid, multicultural and multidisciplinary (expanded painting, mixed media sculptures, experimental animation). 

An exhibition is a dot in the vast history of art, it’s a momentary yet recorded dialogue among narratives. Both permanent and ephemeral, itself an exercise in transiency. In this land and time, upon your witnessing, the work of nine artists convene - taking space, belonging, being celebrated. We invite you to listen, engage and respond: what can be learned from their paradoxical and extraordinary experiences of living with one foot in the present and the other in space of memory, longing, reconciliation and perpetual discovery?

The exhibition is accompanied by an original short documentary directed by Pawan Sharma with interviews by Rituparna Rana, that “explores how movement, memory, and cultural histories shape artistic expression.” Captions and/or transcripts are available in the gallery and in this page.

This exhibition was made possible by the labor and contributions of:

Theoren Sheppard, Devon Hugdahl, Kaitlyn Walsh, Pamela Hugdahl, Kalianne Morrison, Ashleigh Cannon, Carrie Cannon-Robinson, LaVanda Mireles, Jacob Smithurg, Tracey McGuire, Joshua Robertson, Beck Llinas. A special thanks to Lauren Levin and Lake Giffen-Hunter.

Extraordinary Elsewhere video transcript: rtf file | pdf file | docx file

Roshan Ganu - Pilu And The Banyan Tree video transcript: rtf file | pdf file | docx file

This activity is made possible by the voters of Minnesota through a grant from the Southeastern Minnesota Arts Council thanks to a legislative appropriation from the arts & cultural heritage fund.