Arcadia University’s Art Research Collaboration (ARC) Exhibition Program is pleased to present a new installation by Jesse Vincent ’11 for the fifth annual Alumni Spotlight Exhibition. On view in the University Commons Art Gallery through Jan. 16, 2017, “Other Than a Memory” combines video, sound, and sculptural elements to create an environment that questions the nature of remembering.

Vincent’s lecture, “Emergency Crossover,” will survey her experiences as an artist since graduating from Arcadia. The event will take place on Sept. 29, from 4:30 to 6:00 p.m. in the University Commons Great Room. A reception will follow immediately in the gallery upstairs where the public will be able to experience Vincent’s new work.

For this installation, Vincent has constructed a light-tight cube within the exhibition space which houses five projected videos utilizing footage and sound recordings of her family gatherings. Upon entering the space the viewer is surrounded by the sights and sounds of innumerable graduations, weddings, birthdays and other events projected onto surfaces layered with small squares of sheer white fabric.

The immersiveness of the space, combined with the volume of shifting and overlapping images is meant to provide the viewer with the experience of inhabiting Vincent’s own mind as she attempts to retrieve a distinct, coherent record of her past. Her process is confounded by the memories of redundant events, dreams, verbal accounts, and Vincent’s own subsequent viewing of these recorded moments, as well as by the organic degradation caused by the passage of time.  

Although the content is specific to Vincent’s Western, middle-class, background, the viewer’s familiarity with the conventions of home video make them reminiscent of our own. The resulting combination of disorientation and recognition prompts a broader speculation about how all memories are formed, stored, revived, and revised.

Based in Levittown, Pa., since 2014, Vincent has worked at Artworks Trenton where she is the Education Coordinator and serves on the Exhibits Committee. This non-profit visual art center generates exhibitions, events, and workshops with the goal of building stronger community ties in the greater Trenton, N.J. region.  

Until recently Vincent was also an assistant curator for Sales Gaspillée, a unique, single-night exhibition series that provided a venue in Old City for unrepresented or self-trained artists during Philadelphia’s First Fridays. Her work has been included in Windows of Soul, a city beautification project in Trenton that supports the installation of art on the outsides of abandoned buildings. Vincent has also presented her work at more traditional venues such as Prince Street Gallery in New York City and the Foundry Art Centre in St. Charles, Mo.

Previous artists presented in this exhibition series include Jennifer Titone ’11 (2015), Jannalyn Bailey ’09 (2014), Christopher Thomas ’94 (2013), and Andrew Ortwein ’07 (2012). 

Both events are free and open to the public. The lecture is co–­sponsored by the Arcadia Exhibitions Program and the Department of Art and Design.

The exhibition is curated by Matthew Borgen, and was made possible by a donation by Theresa and John Rollins. For more information about the exhibition, please contact the ARC Exhibition Program at (215) ­517-­2629 or borgenm@arcadia.edu.