BACKLOT | Thesis exhibition

April 17 to May 3 | Step Gallery

Opening reception | April 18 | 6 to 9 p.m.

“BACKLOT” is a solo MFA thesis exhibition from Nicole Ponsart, a current MFA candidate with the School of Art working predominantly in ceramics. The installation is used to confront the paradoxical relationship between the tourist gaze and the commodification of landscape through the creation of a modular, human-scale ceramic canyon. The exhibition is positioned to allow viewers the space to interrogate and recognize the artificial choreography of how nature is often displayed for consumption — as marketable objects of desire, aestheticized and ultimately disconnected from their histories.

Drawing from the romanticized imagery of the American Southwest, the installation is comprised of large-scale sculptures created from 100% recycled material collected from around the greater metro Phoenix Area. The forms are intended as a mirror of how we encounter place in the age of tourism through partial glimpses, controlled movements and surface impressions. Embedded with the intimacy of a historically physical, elemental, craft-based practice, such as ceramics, its production process is a reflection of the intention taken to take a slower, more hands-on approach to a subject so often flattened by spectacle. 

This metaphorical layering illustrates the slow erosion of ecological practices, knowledge systems and ways in which we learn to care for each other and the spaces we inhabit. What happens when a place is reduced to a prop, a backdrop for our pre-packaged experiences?

Image credit: @natejean @mrdadmirzaie