Embark was the inaugural exhibition for Rush Hall at Wilkins and the George Stout Fellowship for Art in the Public Sphere, a project Curated by Kevin Lair, Associate Teaching Professor in architecture and interdisciplinary design. The exhibition featured work by six artists based in Ames, Chicago, Boston, St. Louis and Nova Scotia.

The work revolves around themes such as impermanence, nostalgia, and transformation. An equivalency of loss and renewal was sought by melting down personally meaningful silver objects into a flat form resembling early hand-hammered mirrors. The reflective nature of highly polished silver allows the viewer to glimpse herself, although distorted, in the transformed material, and implies subjects such as nostalgia and identity. The video work titled, “Like Breath on a Mirror,” conjures the anxiety of impermanence by making breath visible as condensation on glass, blurring the maker, slowly dissipating, and reminding us of our own short history.