In Dialogue
Throughout the group exhibition Women Heavy at the Gardens Gallery in Kearny, NJ, curator Donna Kessinger references contemporary and second-wave feminist ideas. The curator aims to create a clinical and visceral experience by investigating broad concepts and featuring among many notable others work by Charlie Spademan, Gwen Charles, Jeanne Brasile, Josh Knoblick, Judi Tavill, Kasia Skorynkiewicz, Charlee Swanson, Lauren Vroegindewey, Kristin J. DeAngelis, Michael Angelo, Richard Gaines, Suzan Globus, Vikki Michalios, A.V. Ryan, Donna Conklin King, Anna Ehrsam, and Doris Cacoilo. In our interview curator D. Kessinger sheds some light on her curatorial vision.
You say that the show Woman Heavy represents LGBTQ+ and BIPOC Artists and describe it as “fiercely honest, feminist, soulful, edgy.” Tell us a bit about what we can see in this show.
Women Heavy opines non-traditional and sometimes controversial subject matter along with work that shines with positivity, sending the message that we are all in this together. With Hopeful and This is not who we are… the message of Charlie Hewitt’s light-based sculptures shines a glow of unity that fills the gallery and sets the vibe for other work with radical feminist undertones. Works that actively question identity politics, including the Virtual Reality video of A Womxn Destroyed and Transnational Threads by Amanda Stojanov and Linh Dao.
Alison Pirie’s Hysterical is seemingly fun, with a touchable, toy-like first impression, until you realize how out of control her tiny laser-cut wooden body appears in the hands of multiple viewers, who pull her string again and again, making her legs and arms open and close and eventually flail out of control. A Razor Blade Or Any Tool Will Do depicts the tools used in the deplorable practice of female genital mutilation by Nisha Sondhe. Danielle Scott’s sculpture Griff and We did not Enslave Ourselves, featuring a human-scale wooden cross, cast metal noose, and a metal cart with the memory of the rope embedded in the sand, is intensely and sadly historic.
The handmade paper installation by Amanda Thackray, Spring Shower / Field of Tears, is enchanting. Laia Cabrera and Isabelle Duverger’s QUALIA – You Matter to Me immersive media installation offers a moment to process and reflect. Amy Faris’ Breast Shield protects visually, while Andrea McKenna’s Uprooted looks over the gallery with calm serenity and Earth Mother’s wisdom. Megan Dyer’s Autumn Pieter, Ladies of the Lake, has a mirrored biograph offering a timeline and a detailed description of the subject next to the pigmented layers of color on white paper. Brigitta Varadi, HUNIA Reflection, silk, merino wool, raw wool, threads, acid red dye, video performance, the site-specific piece is a reminder of the strength people find during the unrest and rebuilding life afterward.
You have at Gardenship Arts. Studio residency program, portable foundry, welding, ceramics, and video production. What can you tell us about Gardenship Arts?
Kearny, New Jersey, based on Gardenship Arts, is an artist-run Collider Space developed around a portable iron casting foundry facility and artist studios. It was founded in 2019 by Josh Knoblick, Eve Biddle, and John Bisbee in a joint partnership with Kearny Point Management. The studio program opened in January 2020 with 25 fully funded residencies until the pandemic shut down the program in April of the same year.
Gardenship Arts provided a series of curated Pandemic Drive-In Movies onsite, providing sound and artist-created media in the comfort and safety of personal cars during the height of the COVID-19 shutdown in 2020. The Kearny Point-based studio program, fabrication, and casting facilities were reopened on a smaller scale to local artists, this time as a scaled-back subsidized model. Our operations have been run independently, self-funded, and non-profit since 2021. In 2025, we will be celebrating our fifth anniversary and are actively planning a series of fundraising events and a capital campaign to support and grow our programs. The roster includes community-focused traditional art-making space, specialized sand casting workshops, iron pours, an eco-driven mural program, in-house digital media production, and the newly launched gallery project.
Gardenship Arts produces at least three iron pours a year, free and open to the public, the IN7 Video Residency Program, a metal fabrication studio, subsidized sand casting workshops, and artist studios. The gallery program is being developed under the guidance of Creative Director and Curator D Kessinger, Operations Director Jacob Mandel, and Gardenship Founder and Director Josh Knoblick.
How does this current project differ from your previous experience running Artfair 14C in Jersey City?
My background includes traditional gallery installations at the Guggenheim Museum, The New Museum, and BXMA, coordinating the galleries at PS1/MoMA. I was the executive director of the Monmouth Museum for three years before and during the pandemic. I was one of the Deputy Directors of Artfair 14C in 2022. The Fair was structured around the physical space of the Jersey City Armory, and that was the most challenging aspect for me; placing art around a gymnasium was something I had experienced while designing shows at PS1 Contemporary Art, but the limitations of working in an active Armory Building was the most significant issue about creating a functional and professional art space with safety in mind for the artists and their work.
Guardianship Art functions as a space for artists to develop their ideas and create work in materials that are hard to deal with in non-industrial spaces, including Art Fairs. I think this project differs the most from an Art Fair in the sense that we have access to heavy industrial metal art, a portable foundry, large-scale kilns for huge ceramic works, shipping containers, affordable art studios, access to media production equipment, access to fabricators on site and we also have a state-of-the-art gallery across the street from the Gardens campus. One hand washes the other in a sense; Gardenship helps bring the art and artist to the Fair. Artfair 14C brings NJ artists to the marketplace.
WOMEN HEAVY at Gardenship Art Gallery runs through August, 18th. Art Talk at the gallery June 23rd 3-6 PM
205 Campus Drive, Kearny, NJ, 07032
Main Office: 205 Campus Dr. Building 44C, Kearny, NJ
Gallery location: Kearny Point – Building 78 @gardenship.art