Ways of Being

2022

November 9 – December 7

SITE 280 Gallery

Contributing Artists

Victoria Smits

Exhibition Statement as Preserved in the SUGS/SITE Archives:

Our Way of Being in the world emerges from the attachment behavioral system within our family of origin. The social-emotional and interpersonal development inside the formative relationships of our first caregivers frames current and future engagement, linking theories on emotion regulation and personality. Ways of Being is a pedagogical exploration of the initial and extended impacts of attachment between a child and caregiver. In the revolutionary book, Ways of Seeing, John Berger clarifies the difference between looking and seeing, “The relation between what we see and what we know is never settled. Each evening we see the sun set. We know that the earth is turning away from it. Yet the knowledge, the explanation, never quite fits the sight” (Berger, 1). By extension, seeing another human necessitates an awareness of complexities in identity rooted in attachment experiences. Our way of existing, of being, begins and forms inside this attachment relationship. This exhibition, with explorations in textile, video, sound, and sculpture, considers the artist’s way of being and elicits a discussion of the phenomenological awareness of ourselves. Understanding the antecedent factors to our current existence and its comparative knowledge elicits a profound effect on relationships.