The Art Gallery at UWF presents “All That Was Bright”

The Art Gallery at the University of West Florida presents “All That Was Bright” by artists Basqo Bim, Jacob Reptile and Jane Tardo from January 12 through March 2. An artist panel will be held at TAG on Thursday, January 12, from 4 to 5 p.m., with an opening reception and refreshments from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. Artwork will be on display at TAG, located in the Center for Fine and Performing Arts, Building 82, on the Pensacola campus. 

“All That Was Bright” addresses human influence on the world, imagining alternate stories with playfulness and humor undergirded by a deep awareness of loss and precarity. Through fiber art, sculpture and interactive installation, the gallery is transformed into a timeless space in which the human form is decentralized, sidestepped, and steeped in animism and folklore. This exhibition reconsiders our relationship to the natural world, for, as philosopher Isabelle Stengers writes, “[…] if there is a post-Anthropocene worth living in, those who live in it will need different stories, with no entity at the center of the stage.”

Jane Tardo’s “Snake Tube Adventure Racing” reorients our gaze, offering the chance to pilot a snake through bright and colorful scenes depicting our collapsing world. Fun, loud, and engrossing, the racetrack reflects the contemporary bent towards distraction and pleasure in the face of our incomprehensibly calamitous present and future. Jacob Reptile imagines a joyful ecosystem in which fiber flora and fauna are made from our discarded materials, situating us both in our own past and a more hopeful future. Basqo Bim’s intricate, embellished masks reflect folkloric and mythic knowledge, bridging geographies and cultural inheritances. They are otherworldly but familiar, existing in the not-quite-here space. Together, this installation builds a world that is at once enchanting and uncanny, asking us to consider how and where we belong in a posthuman future.  

The Art Gallery at the University of West Florida seeks to challenge, stimulate and engage students and the greater public through direct interaction with works of contemporary art. TAG is open from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday. All events are free and open to the public.