Relics for the Future, Organized by Jessica Snow

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About the exhibition

Relics for the Future takes as its point of departure an imagined future in which the art created today is interpreted in an entirely new light.

The artwork of today may be seen as our most successful attempts at communication— odd idols, reliquaries, mandalas, or icons that have transformative power in a society otherwise bereft of such possibility, holding magical properties we currently assign to the art of the ancients.

On our imperiled planet with increasingly scarce resources, which materials will be available, or increasingly unavailable, to artists? This show is both a playful and a serious look at the question of art-making in our present moment, and the issues that artists may face in a not-very-distant future. Jessica Snow

About the curator

Jessica Snow is an artist, professor, and curator based in San Francisco. She earned a BA from UC Davis and a MFA from Mills College, and she also attended the Sorbonne and the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture. Jessica is adjunct professor in the Studio Art and Art History departments at University of San Francisco. She is represented by Pastine Projects in San Francisco and Ideelart in London, and has curated several shows in the Bay Area, most recently 'Relics for the Future' for NIAD Art Center in Richmond.

Her current research into art futurology is informed by art history and speculative studies, and incorporates a wide-ranging inquiry into ancient art as well as theories about the art of the future. In 2022, Jessica will be in residence at Fundación Valparaíso in Spain, L'Appartamento Napoli in Italy, and Château Orquevaux in France. While in residence, she'll be exploring in a new body of work the paradoxical correspondences between the past and future, and the implications these hold for present-day creative activity, recognizing in particular our deep connection to the natural world.