The VCUarts Lecture Series kicks off its 2024-25 season with “once & hopeful stars,” an introduction to VCUarts alumna George Ferrandi’s 1708 Gallery exhibition, which features several ceremonial sculptures from the Jump!Star initiative.

A slight wobble in Earth’s rotation causes our North Star to shift slowly over time. Jump!Star brings artists, scientists, musicians and cultural institutions together with everyday people to invent future traditions commemorating this eventual transition. Through collaborative dream-storming sessions called “Constellates,” participants develop future dances, songs, regalia, snack recipes and sculpture designs to be passed down to our descendants as they bid a vibrant farewell to Polaris and welcome Gamma Cephei to its position above our polar axis. Jump!Star posits that forging these new rituals together today gives us the opportunity to imagine the citizens of the next millennia and speculatively celebrate their survival, while being tangibly implicated in it.

George Ferrandi’s participatory projects address issues of vulnerability, impermanence, fallibility and spectacle, often through experimental approaches to narrative. Employing humor and a deep sense of humanity, her work ranges in form and scale from a simple gesture–like resting her head on the shoulder of a stranger on the subway, to a giant spectacle–like parading with hundreds through the streets of South Philly. It’s a collaborative experiment in story-telling, with participants becoming performers or even creating the narrative.

George’s work has been included in Documenta 15, performed/exhibited at the WeltMuseum and Brunnenpassage in Vienna, International House of Japan in Tokyo, Abrons Arts Center, The Kitchen, and Open Source in NY. She is an NEA fellow of the Japan-US Friendship Commission and has been awarded grants from NEA “Our Town,” MAPFund, Franklin Furnace Fundwinners for Performance Art, Foundation for Contemporary Arts, Mid Atlantic Arts Council and Kindle Project.

This is a hybrid event. Please register to attend virtually.