Towards a Warm Embrace is a two-person exhibition by NYC-based artists Ezra Benus and Finnegan Shannon. The show focuses on disability and accessibility practices with, in the words of Shannon, “the underlying premise that access is something everyone has a responsibility towards”.
Collaborative partnerships are central to the making of Towards a Warm Embrace. Working together for the first time, Benus and Shannon have created a new installation Hot Hang (2024) which uses light, heat, and language to explore the artist’s joint interest in heating pads as tools for comfort. Presented in the Kaemmer Family Gallery, the space is washed in warm, mellow light which changes over time and references sunrise alarm clocks or happy lamps. A table with comfortable chairs and benches with inviting pillows offer places to use heating pads with custom cyanotype and screen printed covers. Recorded audio of a conversation between the artists plays on a 20 minute loop, and accompanying captioned text is projected.
The Braucher Gallery includes examples of previous artworks made individually by Benus and by Shannon, although often in collaboration with other artistic partners or audiences. For instance, Ezra Benus regularly collaborates with their brother Noah Benus under the collective name, Brothers Sick. Shannon’s large-scale Portable mural 2 (2020) greets visitors with the text “Students for accessibility, staff for accessibility, artists for accessibility, academics for accessibility, communities for accessibility”. This artwork, and the exhibition at large, can be read as a call to action in support of creating stronger communities and greater accessibility for one another.
Acknowledgments
Many thanks to students in Assistant Professor of Art Jade Hoyer’s fall 2023 Printmaking class (ARTS 274) for collaborating with Ezra Benus and Finnegan Shannon to produce custom heating pad covers for Towards a Warm Embrace.