Finding Your Center is a self-help audio tour and distributed sculptural installation that playfully responds to our quest for calm, balance, and equilibrium in the face of the demands of modern life. Using color, voice, shape, and sound—and responding to the unique architectural features of Yerba Buena Center for the Arts—Susan O’Malley and Leah Rosenberg lead visitors through the exhibition spaces in search of an elusive center that is both physical and internal.
The project begins at the central pillar in YBCA’s anteroom and includes three additional locations in and around the galleries of the ground floor. Using a bright color palette designed to induce feelings of harmony, Rosenberg responds to the building’s repetition of the classic column shape by highlighting existing cylindrical forms as well as suggesting new ones. An edition of round colored stools, which visitors can use to rest and reflect, accompanies her installation. O’Malley’s audio tour refers to and engages with Rosenberg’s painted sculptural elements. As the affable tour guide narrator, she interweaves positive affirmations with moments for self-reflection and gentle prompts for listeners to engage with the exhibition environment in ways that inspire calm.
Finding Your Center is conceived in dialogue with Montalvo Arts Center’s current multi-year theme about health and wellness entitled Flourish: Artists Explore Wellbeing and is envisioned as a site-specific response to the decentralizing impulse of BAN7. Consistent with Montalvo’s commitment to fostering cross-disciplinary collaboration, the project features partnerships with San Francisco-based writer Christina Amini, Bay Area industrial designer Benjamin Laramie, and Seattle-based composer Tiffany Lin. Much of this project was conceived and developed by the artists while in residence at the Lucas Artists Residency Program at Montalvo Art Center.
Listen to the self-help audio tour created for this exhibition here.
The project begins at the central pillar in YBCA’s anteroom and includes three additional locations in and around the galleries of the ground floor. Using a bright color palette designed to induce feelings of harmony, Rosenberg responds to the building’s repetition of the classic column shape by highlighting existing cylindrical forms as well as suggesting new ones. An edition of round colored stools, which visitors can use to rest and reflect, accompanies her installation. O’Malley’s audio tour refers to and engages with Rosenberg’s painted sculptural elements. As the affable tour guide narrator, she interweaves positive affirmations with moments for self-reflection and gentle prompts for listeners to engage with the exhibition environment in ways that inspire calm.
Finding Your Center is conceived in dialogue with Montalvo Arts Center’s current multi-year theme about health and wellness entitled Flourish: Artists Explore Wellbeing and is envisioned as a site-specific response to the decentralizing impulse of BAN7. Consistent with Montalvo’s commitment to fostering cross-disciplinary collaboration, the project features partnerships with San Francisco-based writer Christina Amini, Bay Area industrial designer Benjamin Laramie, and Seattle-based composer Tiffany Lin. Much of this project was conceived and developed by the artists while in residence at the Lucas Artists Residency Program at Montalvo Art Center.
Listen to the self-help audio tour created for this exhibition here.
Image Gallery
Meet the Artists
SUSAN O'MALLEY
Website
Susan O’Malley (1976-2015) was an artist and curator from the San Francisco Bay Area. From posters to pep talks, billboards to vending machines, her art uses simple and recognizable tools of engagement to connect people to one another. O’Malley’s artwork has been exhibited in public projects across the United States—including the Montalvo Art Center, Kala Art Institute, and Palo Alto Art Center in California; the Contemporary Art Museum in Houston; and the Parthenon Museum in Nashville—as well as in galleries and museums in the United Kingdom, Denmark, and Poland. Her installation Finding Your Center was recently featured at San Francisco’s Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, and her project A Healing Walk is permanently installed at Montalvo Art Center.
Website
Susan O’Malley (1976-2015) was an artist and curator from the San Francisco Bay Area. From posters to pep talks, billboards to vending machines, her art uses simple and recognizable tools of engagement to connect people to one another. O’Malley’s artwork has been exhibited in public projects across the United States—including the Montalvo Art Center, Kala Art Institute, and Palo Alto Art Center in California; the Contemporary Art Museum in Houston; and the Parthenon Museum in Nashville—as well as in galleries and museums in the United Kingdom, Denmark, and Poland. Her installation Finding Your Center was recently featured at San Francisco’s Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, and her project A Healing Walk is permanently installed at Montalvo Art Center.
LEAH ROSENBERG
Website
Leah Rosenberg was born in Ann Arbor, Michigan in 1979. She studied at New York Studio Program, Independent Studio, ACAID, New York, New York; received her BFA from the Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design, Vancouver, British Columbia in 2003; and obtained her MFA at the California College of Art, San Francisco, California in 2008. She currently resides and works in San Francisco, California. Spanning painting, sculpture, installation and pastry, Leah Rosenberg’s work explores how color, form, flavor and arrangements affect human emotion. Using a process of accrual and layers, Rosenberg’s works personify how our experiences and memories accumulate, creating a piece with a vivid variety of color and texture.
Website
Leah Rosenberg was born in Ann Arbor, Michigan in 1979. She studied at New York Studio Program, Independent Studio, ACAID, New York, New York; received her BFA from the Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design, Vancouver, British Columbia in 2003; and obtained her MFA at the California College of Art, San Francisco, California in 2008. She currently resides and works in San Francisco, California. Spanning painting, sculpture, installation and pastry, Leah Rosenberg’s work explores how color, form, flavor and arrangements affect human emotion. Using a process of accrual and layers, Rosenberg’s works personify how our experiences and memories accumulate, creating a piece with a vivid variety of color and texture.
Collaborators
|
Writer
Christine Amini |
Designer
Benjamin Laramie |
Composer
Tiffany Lin |
