The Center Can Not Hold / Anne Mooney + John Sparano + Hannah Vaughn / Curated by Hikmet Sidney Loe
Wednesday, October 12, 2022 – Friday, January 20, 2023
Reception
Friday, November 18, 2022 / 6-8 pm
The Center Can Not Hold considers ideas of place conceptualized through the processes of architecture, revealing the temporal nature of the center. Positioning the geographical center of Utah and the town of Ephraim as the practical center for creative work, regional architects Anne Mooney and John Sparano (principals at Sparano + Mooney Architecture) and Hannah Vaughn (principal at VY Architecture) respond to this idea through forms, words, and questions.
Their collective and collaborative result is not architecture to be built, but contemporary art that acts as a catalyst to mine conceptual layers of engagement with the past, the present, and the future. The ephemerality of the present moment—who occupies place, what traces remain of their existence—leads to questions of past occupation, how place is mapped, and concepts of erasure, remembrance, and memory. The residue of stories from people who have come before us and who will follow us, in our own situation of place and center, is reflected through the materiality of maps (realized and imagined), the layers of time and earth, and casts of accumulation. These works ask: who has the privilege to see the center? How can we broaden our views to “see” the accumulation of time and embrace our connection to place through a center that is continually shifting? Is there, indeed, a center (geographic, historical) that holds us together? The absence of one center opens infinite views and possibilities.
carto·graphic / Anne Mooney, John Sparano
Our understanding of the term “center” embraces alternative ways of experiencing a landscape and the invisible presence of suppressed voices. In our consideration, the idea of a center is dynamic, evolutionary, and transitory, and embodies an ethos of multiplicity rather than the implied singularity of the word. This interactive construct invites the visitor to explore the piece from a variety of perspectives – some direct, others requiring effort to access and assess the view.
Within a white conic shell, maps of central Utah are visible. On one side is a U.S. Geological Survey map of the Sanpete Valley, organized within the logic of the Jeffersonian grid. (1) This map serves as the background for a critique of what this and other charts portray and omit. The standardized graphics, colors and symbols act as a singular, commonly-accepted, means of reading the landscape and suggest a comprehensive documentation of place. However, this system of information prompts a questioning of what might be missing, ignored or erased.
An overlay of another set of patterns, color fields and line work helps us to consider the possibility of the presence of unrecorded and invisible human settlement in this landscape – the presence of the “other”. These overlaid graphics challenge the USGS’ conventions of representation, but also the notion that the map is a full depiction of this geographical area. The resulting juxtaposition challenges the viewer to contemplate what – and who – else might have inhabited and experienced these spaces and landscapes.
On the opposite side of the conic apparatus, an aerial photograph of this regional center is visible. The layered logic of this work suggests the presence of others – those not visible (or excluded from) within the gridded settlements and in the agricultural fields. Natural materials reference the Native American legend of the Three Sisters and the synergistic wisdom of planting squash, corn and beans together for their mutual benefit: a metaphor for community, this inclusion of diverse elements serves to strengthen both the individual and the collective.(2) Other local plant materials help impress alternate patterns upon the landforms, providing a counterpoint to both the landscape and the visible traces of its development seen in the image.
The surrounding conic enclosure creates an abstract physical and visual barrier between the viewer and the maps. Two separate and distinct spaces are created, as the ideas of connection and separation are explored. The space in which the aerial image exists, and the space in which the viewer exists, are distinct and controlled experiences.
A series of apertures of different shapes and sizes is the observer’s means of visual interaction with the map. The views of the map provide a variety of fragmented “ways of seeing” and highlight the understanding that both a photograph and a USGS map offer singular (and limited) knowledge of a place, as well as its inhabitants. Each aperture is one of a collection of perspectives, offering fragmentary points of view. Each viewer leaves this presentation with a unique sense of the concept of “center” based on their individual interaction and engagement with the work.
(1) Shortly after the American Revolution, Thomas Jefferson proposed the idea of using a grid system to quantify the newly-independent and rapidly-expanding republic. Once implemented, Jefferson’s system was rational and predictable, but most importantly, it was scalable. In the American West, the Jeffersonian grid was inseparable from the concept of settlement. It was the casting of a net over the landscape to capture, tame and ultimately commodify it. It was a means of organizing and quantifying the vast American wilderness and gave European settlers the ability to locate themselves within it. However, the imposition of the grid on the American landscape made instant foreigners of Native Americans: because their settlements were not a result of the new order, the implication was that they were outsiders in their ancestral homelands.
(2) The legend of the Three Sisters has many variations in Native American culture. One way of understanding this narrative is through the farming method of planting corn, squash and beans together for mutual benefit: the structure of the corn provides a trellis of support for the beans while they grow; in turn, the beans help feed the other plants through enriching their shared soil; while squash vines dispersed along the ground form a strong base controlling weeds, retaining moisture, and offering protection from predators. The three plants thrive as they grow together and provide nutrition within a balanced diet. The legend is also culturally significant, with aspects of mythology and spirituality often infused into the tale and as well as into the importance of the plants.
There was never a center to hold. / Hannah Vaughn
So often, centering our limited perceptions and constructing taxonomic time around our own existence . . . eventually, we join the inert. The temporarily inert. The sometimes distinct, the less distinct, the indistinct – endowed somehow with endless memory, extending beyond us. Once the earth is swallowed by a star, or a fragment of impossibly heavy space, left in the [non]eternity of a lightless sun . . . Though likely such a drama won’t be necessary, as we simply [re]find our place within the context of which we are part as, “We are almost all as old as the Earth. Recent and rigorous, our time-counters bring back nature, in the sense where life was born billions of years ago. We are all immersed in the same alluvium” (Serres, Michel. The Incandescent. London: Bloomberry, 2018). But the alluvium is everchanging, and even the eternal sun will darken eventually, and there are many universes beyond our own. There is no one fixed point. No actual center. And we are part of it.
What relief.
The material articulations are at once place-based – rooted in the Sanpete Valley, seeking to connect to and understand the current and recent characters and happenings of the low-slung basin – and distinctly [universally/inescapably] human, connected to a specificity that is ever-changing. Relying on physicality as the driver – a non-conceptual point of departure that trusts the memory of hands and body and impulse to react in relationship to material. As memory extends beyond cognition, leaning into cellular and evolutionary memory to collect, organize, polish, press, compose, cut, recompose, dissect, encase, expand, and imprint. The resulting studies are and exacting accumulation of time (compressed, irreversible and opaque), a dissection of the past, an expansion of time, and an articulation of fleeting moments in found objects (bones, tules, seeds, petals, wire, ink, roots, burned trees, buildings, nests, limestone, etc.) and paper (cast, molded, pressed, etc.). A trembling momentary existence, that is not its final form.
What relief.
About the Curator
Born and raised on the east coast, Hikmet Sidney Loe developed an affinity for Great Basin deserts and the environs of Great Salt Lake. In response to these landscapes, her work advanced to examine the changeable nature of the earth and address our perceptual and cultural constructs of the land. Her curatorial projects mine ideas of place – This Earth: Notes and Observations by Montello Foundation Artists, Southern Utah Museum of Art; geologic material – A Measure of Salt, Granary Arts; and artists’ responses to their environments – upcoming Modern Desert Markings: An Homage to Las Vegas Area Land Art, Marjorie Barrick Museum of Art.
She authored The Spiral Jetty Encyclo: Exploring Robert Smithson's Earthwork through Time and Place in 2017; it won the 15 Bytes Book Award for Art Book in 2018 and was a finalist for the Utah State Historical Society Best Book Award. The next book in this series focused on singular works of Land art is scheduled for publication in 2026 as The Sun Tunnels Encyclo: Exploring Nancy Holt’s Earthwork through Perception and Site. Loe additionally writes for Southwest Contemporary, Hyperallergic, and 15 Bytes. She is a seasoned educator, currently teaching art history as a part-time instructor at University of Nevada, Las Vegas, where she holds Graduate College status. Her passion for experiential teaching and learning has afforded her teaching opportunities for the Honors College, University of Utah in their Ecology & Legacy Integrated Minors Program and for the Honors College, Westminster College. She has also taught at Weber State University and for both Clemente and Venture Programs through Utah Humanities. hikmetsidneyloe.com
About the Artists
Anne G. Mooney, AIA, NCARB, LEED AP, was born in Butte, Montana and was educated at the University of Utah, Columbia University in New York, the Southern California Institute of Architecture (SCI-Arc) in Los Angeles and Ticino, Switzerland. She is a founding partner of Sparano + Mooney Architecture and her award-winning designs have been featured in over 35 national and international publications and exhibitions in the United States, England, Italy, Germany, and Japan. She has served on the AIA Utah Board of Directors and was named one of the Top Women in Architecture by Mountain Living magazine. Anne is recognized as a committed educator and mentor for students, and emerging architects and design professionals. She holds an appointment as Professor of Architecture at the University of Utah School of Architecture where she teaches advanced design studios. In 2021 Anne was awarded the Silver Medal by the AIA Western Mountain Region, the top honor given to an architect in the region. sparanomooney.com
John P. Sparano, FAIA, is a founding partner of Sparano + Mooney Architecture. John was educated at the Catholic University of America in Washington D.C. and the Architectural Association in London, England. Drawing insight from place, program and client vision, Sparano creates compelling spaces that connect people with their communities and landscape. He is adept at seamlessly integrating new buildings into a variety of high-altitude contexts with heightened cultural and historic significance. His analytical approach to design, coupled with expertise in new and innovative application and detailing of materials, has set him apart as a leading architect in the American West. Sparano was recognized with the 2019 Silver Medal from the AIA Western Mountain Region, the highest award given to an architect in this region of the United States. Under his leadership, Sparano + Mooney Architecture’s design process accentuates collaboration, research and experimentation, and has resulted in a diverse, award-winning portfolio of work. Sparano has lectured and exhibited widely. sparanomooney.com
Hannah Vaughn, AIA, is an architect and educator based in Salt Lake City, Utah. In collaboration with Scott Yribar, she founded VY Architecture, with offices in Utah and Idaho. Hannah’s work is centered around the primacy of making, craft as an expression of the value of things, and the necessary resourcefulness of building. The connection to material, people, and place is expanded with a mission in practice to generate work that is both pragmatic and poetic – architecture that is responsible to the community and the future; spaces that silently frame meaningful human experience and have a positive impact beginning to end. Vaughn holds an M.Arch from the University of Utah and a Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy from the University of New Mexico. She teaches design studio at the University of Utah School of Architecture as adjunct faculty, regularly serves on design juries, and is active in the creative and design communities of Utah and the Mountain West region.
As part of her practice, Vaughn frequently engages in peri-practical studies that explore the connection to place [the desert/mountain west], the intuitive and learned manipulation of materials, and the physics and techne of details. These studies culminate in the form of installations, organized discussions, remote performance installations, and various other permutations of inquiry. Notable works include a weighty sculptural installation at the Finch Gallery titled “9 Territories” that examines the domain of the Salt Lake Valley in its precise topography in juxtaposition to the momentary human impact; “Une Chambre pour les Vivants/A Room for the Living,” a remote performance and installation of placemaking and resistant act of domesticity [taking care] as a Frontier Fellow with Epicenter, Utah, in collaboration with Damien Delorme, located on The Slabs outside of Green River, Utah; and “Near Distance,” a permanent installation at the Salt Lake City Airport, in collaboration with Soonju Kwon and Reihaneh Noori – a multimedia work that gathers a proxy of our common horizon into a dense line/void that connects/divides textured and well-traveled surfaces. Through these studies, Vaughn connects to place, to community, and to the materials of making. vyarch.com