“begin again” artist book (detail) by Lara Henderson

Lara Henderson presents new work in a show entitled “Slow Change/Begin Again” at AS220’s Project Space at 93 Mathewson Street through April 29.

Henderson’s new work on display at AS220’s Project Space at 93 Mathewson Street extends well beyond her specialization in book arts and reflects a unity of vision driven searching and transformation. In “Slow Change/Begin Again,” political and existential themes are applied to t-shirts and tank tops, paper, acetate, and found wood, and manifested through a series of video shorts representing the film work Henderson has begun to explore.

“Melt Them All Down” includes a silhouette of an automatic weapon used so frequently in recent mass killings in the United States. “Listen/Silent” suggests the meditative and introspective turn of thought that drives Henderson’s own search for understanding. The anagram exists in a braided pattern like DNA strands that interweave and alternate, listen to silent and back to listen again; the pattern, originally printed as wallpaper, appears on textiles and wooden drawers rescued from Providence’s industrial past.

Refunder, a feature-length film Henderson has co-produced with Travis Lee, loops in the background with images that are at times disturbing and violent, at others alluring. The alternative market that Henderson mounted over the winter has a place, too; Henderson is building space for the work of others as well as herself. She plans for the Full Moon Market to become a regular event.

The phases of the moon appear repeatedly, on sheets of acetate pinned together like a large-scale flip-book, in delicate and exquisite art books that demonstrate Henderson’s continued dedication to this craft, and in large, textured lights that evoke the pock-marked surface of a full moon. That lunar power acts as a unifying focus. The transition of the moon suggests the phases of our own life, once fallow then creative, pulling then pushing, ebb and flow. The ideas flow, too, and interleave: transition, change, tuning in, answering a call, discovery and transformation, and the gradual, incremental process of change. Change, the work all seems to agree, is constant. We must listen closely, then, to make sure we change in the way we want to.

Henderson will talk about her work in the Project Space at 93 Mathewson Street on Thursday, April 20, at 5:30pm. The feature length film Refunder will be screened in the Project Space on April 30^th. For more information, find Lara Henderson on Facebook or email the AS220 Project Space at neal.walsh@as220.org.

Taylor Polites is a nationaly recognized writer and print-maker based in Providence, RI.