Art
EXHIBITIONS
I AM PLODDING THROUGH MUD
In this group exhibition, curator and artist ahuva sz, brought together thirteen artists who turn to the fundamental and unglamorous material at our feet: the earth. Working with clay means manipulating geological time—shaping a material formed through the weathering of the planet itself. In this show, clay is liberated from the pedestal and returned to its roots.
The artists in the show use these raw materials in unconventional, experimental ways. The clay manifests as a mound of dirt and metal armatures binding raw clay; it hangs overhead in suspended sculptures; it is printed and pressed into paper; it mimics a ceramic topographical map and even invites visitors to crawl into a dirt cave to draw.
Clay marks the transition from nomadic lifestyles to settled civilizations, anchoring us to place. The exhibition space is staged to mimic a metaphorical town square—a historic site of collective gathering and shared human experience. This square functions as an active laboratory for slowness and solidarity, featuring installation-based works that invite the audience to directly engage.
To plod is to move slowly, heavily, and with deliberate effort. In our contemporary moment, this labor feels universal. We find ourselves wading through the dense realities of societal fatigue, systemic struggle, and individual precarity. Mud is a site of struggle, yes—it slows us down. But mud is also where things take root. It represents a radical return to basics, a humbling reminder of our interdependence, and a testament to human resilience. We do not want to plod alone. We want to gather, sustain one another, and keep moving—achieving this solidarity through workshops, readings, shared dining, making, conversing, or simply taking a pause to hang out in the square.
Building 5, Portland, OR
July 9–26, 2026
From the Exhibition essay, What a Time to be Alive, by Jason N. Le
“For Cassie Tompkins, careful yet curiously vitalistic arrangements of highly contrasting materials and textures—weathered and chipped brick cradled by stacked sheets of attentively dyed wool—intersect on an aesthetic meditation and destabilizing critiques of power and value within her employment of assemblage. After all, such is the nature of assemblage as a theoretical structure, as Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari would suggest: an emphasis on constantly shifting and re-arranging elements contingent upon a myriad of circumstances that create new, whole entities with entirely new functions.”
Photography by Mario Gallucci Photo