“Anita Glesta’s hand-drawn animation series, A GARDEN OF OUR DISCONTENT: Anxiety and Wellbeing
in Times of Crisis features a compilation of moving image work and video installation exploring how our body’s nuanced nervous system is affected by stress. Based on scientific research the artist conducted in fellowship with The ARC Laureate Felt Experience & Empathy Lab, UNSW Sydney, Au, the colorful animations invite the viewer to experience how humans process fear and anxiety in our bodies.

In the North Hall viewers will find a 40-minute projected compilation of Glesta’s unique animated work, cinema-size videos that utilize the illusion of motion, collage, double exposures, and the perspiring, circulatory nature of human bodies expressing the beauty of our bodies and the complex universe within us. In the cavernous Main Hall a single a snarl of billowing ribbon dangles from the industrial building’s steel skeleton over a projection of a person appearing to be stuck beneath the floor. To the south, in a cozy concrete cave, another loop of video at human-body scale is a projection of hand drawn animations of the heart telling a tender story of a cardiac experience through sound and movement.

Visual art can help us experience the universe we share and seldom consider beneath our skin’s surface. During the last several years people throughout the world have experienced a great deal of uncertainty and anxiety and are still processing the effects. In the strange, shifting moment we find ourselves in, there is opportunity to change how we can take care of ourselves and others.

On July 9th , speakers with backgrounds in medicine, theory, science, and sound will discuss the role of art in self-care, public access to care, and community networks of care. A GARDEN will help us look to the future of healthcare systems and the ways we can integrate arts and culture into public health policy to better serve communities.”

– Jessica Wallen, Producer

Featuring:

Julie Reiss (author of Art, Theory and Practice in the Anthropocene),
Joseph LeDoux (neuroscientist, musician and author of many books including:  “Anxious; Using the Brain to Understand and Treat Fear and Anxiety” ),
Nea McKinney (Commissioner of Senior Services for the City of Hudson and sound medicine practitioner),
Dr. Bettina Young, PhD (Catskill Central School District Psychologist & Child Play Therapist promoting self-expression through the arts).