The Noise of Us

Flower 02 (Rijksmuseum) by Ori Gersht
46.5″x35″; archival pigment print; 2021. © Ori Gersht. Courtesy of the artist and Yancey Richardson.

COLLAGE ON VIEW

The Noise of Us

at the Brattleboro Museum and Art Center in Brattleboro, Vermont, USA
26 October 2025-8 March 2025

This exhibition features the work of four artists who visualize the cacophonous experiences of memory-making and recall through their collage-like practices. Felipe Baeza, Ori Gersht, Simonette Quamina, and Maika’i Tubbs each integrates various materials and techniques to create art objects that are physically, visually, and conceptually layered. In the resulting works, forms continually appear and disappear, raising questions about how certain figures and narratives fade in and out of conscious memory. Composed of numerous distinct elements, these works draw attention to the interweaving of selective memories that contribute to experiences of migration, formations of identity, and senses of belonging.

Fragments, refusing totality and wholeness by Felipe Baeza
16″x12″; ink, embroidery, acrylic, graphite, varnish, and cut paper on panel; 2021. © Felipe Baeza. Courtesy Maureen Paley, London; Kurimanzutto, Mexico City, New York

Collage is a loose term that refers to the practice of cutting up existing materials, rearranging them, and pasting them onto a paper support to create a new two-dimensional image. “The Noise of Us”, however, moves beyond this traditional notion of collage and includes works of art that combine distinct visual forms in other ways. This exhibition also offers a conception of collage in which the relationship between the part and the whole is fluid rather than juxtaposed. Similarly, any memory can be seen as a part or a whole, and any history as incomplete.

The collaged works in “The Noise of Us” represent methods of recalling and recounting our individual and collective pasts. What we consciously choose to remember and unconsciously recall informs the histories we tell ourselves and one another. As the works of Baeza, Gersht, Quamina, and Tubbs demonstrate, collage-like practices can visualize the cacophony of our lives, or “the noise of us.” We must simultaneously listen to and sift through this noise as we narrate and re-narrate our pasts in an attempt to better understand who we are today.

(text adapted from material written by the exhibition curator, Elissa Watters)


INFORMATION

Brattleboro Museum & Art Center
10 Vernon Street
Brattleboro, Vermont 05301 USA
(802) 257-0124

Hours:
Wednesday-Sunday, 10AM-4PM

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