In a time of many suns
Exhibition Dates: January 17, 2026 - April 18, 2026
The show features three visual artists: Adria Arch, Karina Puente, and Kate Holcomb Hale. Their work is paired with writing by influential author and activist adrienne maree brown. Visitors experienced a performance by Izizwe Dance Studio, followed by a conversation with the visual artists and curator Monica Lynn Manoski.
Manoski's work as a curator and nonprofit leader is guided by her belief that artists and the visions they inspire are our best hope for saving the planet. In this exhibition, she sees each artist as a life-giving sun, shining light on the ideas that matter most to them.
Artist Bios
adrienne maree brown (she/they) is growing a garden of healing ideas. Informed by decades of movement facilitation, somatics, science fiction scholarship, and doula work, adrienne has nurtured Emergent Strategy, Pleasure Activism, Radical Imagination, and Loving Correction as ideas and practices for transformation. adrienne is the NYT-bestselling author/editor of several published texts, a ritual singer-songwriter, co-generator of the Lineages of Change Tarot Deck, and co-creator/host of How to Survive the End of the World podcast with Autumn Brown.
Karina Puente (she/her) is weaving tapestries of cultural and spiritual expression. A graduate of the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, she creates paintings, drawings, and contemporary "Papel Picado" textile installations. Guided by the legacy of her great-grandmother, a seamstress for Indigenous communities, Karina’s work explores identity, reflecting her vibrant Latina heritage and her connection to the Santa Ynez Valley in California, where she was raised. Each piece is a whisper of intuition, inviting awe.
Adria Arch (she/her) transforms spaces with exuberant feminine energy. With an MFA from MassArt in Boston, she began as a painter and later embraced greater dimensionality in her practice. Adria’s creations, crafted from lightweight polystyrene and recycled Styrofoam, dance in suspension, engaging gravity as a co-creator. At Essex Art Center, her two bodies of work, shown together for the first time, invite the audience to witness the interplay of movement and stillness.
Kate Holcomb Hale (she/her) is an architect of emotion and memory, crafting objects that embody care, loss, and resilience. Her practice spans sculpture, painting, video, and craft. Regularly collaborating with dancers, Kate’s reimagined architectural elements invite a physical response. Her collapsing ladders and knotted handrails reveal the fragility of our society’s support systems. Through sewing, she makes rigid materials pliable, and her color palette, which is inspired by bruising, suggests both grief and healing. Her installations encourage empathy, prompting viewers to move through spaces with greater sensitivity.
Community Connection
Within the exhibition, visitors found a space to sit and respond to the prompt: Write the world you want to live in into existence. At this “creation station,” the community was invited to respond expansively through writing, drawing, and sewing. Visitors were welcome to leave their contributions in the space to be displayed.
