ambrosia / salad

The title ambrosia/salad holds two words, and three concepts in conversation. Ambrosia, the mythical food of the gods, was believed to grant immortality and vitality. Imagined as a slow, honey-like substance, it brought transformation and divine nourishment to those who drank it. Ambrosia salad, on the other hand, is a nostalgic American dessert made from canned fruit, coconut, marshmallow, and sweet cream: a beloved (albeit nutritionally questionable) mixture. And then we have the salad itself: a gathering of disparate ingredients brought together in one shared bowl.

ambrosia/salad embraces this spirit of mixture: the sacred and the ordinary, the refined and the playful, the familiar and the unexpected. Across the grounds of Haskel Gardens in New Bedford, twelve artists create installations, activations, and performances that invite visitors to wander, listen, taste, converse, contemplate, and create. The approaches and media are as diverse as the artists that employ them, and the exhibition does not seek to resolve those differences with curatorial smoke and mirrors. It openly delights in the surprises and possibilities that emerge when not everything needs to fit into a box.

This exhibition pushes in two directions: against the isolation and stiffness of institutional art spaces and against the scriptedness and routine of everyday life. As a remedy, it turns to ancient forms of connection: gathering, spectacle, communal ritual and celebration, all harkening to the holy feast, the backyard festa.  It unfolds in a garden ripe with new growth and historical significance, where art becomes less an object of contemplation and more a catalyst for coming together and experiencing something new.

When contemporary art can sometimes feel like it exists at a distance,  ambrosia/salad seeks to close the gap between artistic experimentation and everyday life. It is a gathering of many ingredients, brought together in the hope that something nourishing, surprising, and sustaining might emerge.