Stephanie Rond – Spacewalkers
Inspired by the ‘spacewalkers’ that repair the Hubble telescope, Spacewalkers is a series of street art installations and indoor work that explore figures who exist in liminal spaces, spaces both human and otherworldly, spaces of creative possibility and personal peril. These figures tell a different story about the purpose of public art as well as the women and marginalized people who are too often excluded from participation as well as representation.
The series re-imagines what--and who--deserves to be made visible in public space. Traditionally, monuments exist to reaffirm and reinforce power. I believe it is important to consider not only who is represented and glorified by monumental art, but also who is not represented, who is perpetually absent, who is denied recognition. I see the Spacewalkers series as anti-monumental, a series of artworks that resist--and, more importantly--rebuke the assumption that public space exists to exalt the already powerful.
Public space is deeply gendered. It is no accident that few female-identifying persons are depicted in monumental art and statuary in Columbus, and Spacewalkers is designed to challenge that. I am especially curious about the way that women react to spaces that are not built for their flourishing and, in some cases, their very survival. My spacewalkers refuse their containment, protest their restriction, and defy efforts to subordinate them.
Finally, Spacewalkers is resistant to a primary goal of monumental art: the creation of a work that appears invulnerable, permanent, and transcendent of death. I work with paper, which, by definition, is ephemeral and in outdoor spaces likely to fall away within the year. I'm not looking to sustain illusions of a world without loss. I also work with stencil art, a technique that is often in contrast to the traditions of fine art and identified with the visual language of protest. In this way, I invite new questions about the form of public art and its purpose, and create dynamic space for female voices to emerge in our city.
