The Matter at Hand: Improvisation in Art and Civic Life

In what the philosopher Gaston Bachelard calls the "intuition of the instant," improvisation can seem sporadic, unpredictable; set within a larger portion of time (a “rhythm”) it begins to feel necessary, needed. In The Matter at Hand: Improvisation in Art and Civic Life, music and social meaning are made out of unconventional materials with bespoke methods. Sand in Sara Stern’s plein air stop motion animation, balloons in Judy Dunaway’s tapestry “with the sound of its own making,” and donated drone parts at the Kyiv Engineering Corps, photographic archives in Carmen Winant and Ashima Yadava’s non-linear storytelling, and children’s handwriting in Marion Winant’s exercises, Carolyn Sheffield’s furniture fragments, Zainab Sumu’s printed masks, Crystalle Lacouture’s flags, and Beaux Mendes’ scagliola, egg tempera, and true gesso panels fill the gallery with pictures of How We Practice (2025), the title of Carmen Winant’s new book. Winant discusses her book with art historians Genevieve Hyacinthe and Jacob Stewart-Halevy and sociologist Michael Strand. Sara Stern gives an artist talk, Judy Dunaway, students, and community members perform the balloons, Henri Cole reads poetry, and Zainab Sumu is in conversation with Lucy Rosenburgh from Caira Art Editions.