Mutually Assured
Collaboration between Maggie Sasso and Adam Manley for the Exhibit Turning It All Around at The Messler Gallery in Rockport, ME
January -April 2023
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Description Mutually Assured was born of the stacked personal and societal anxieties of the past three years. Maggie and Adam, two like-minded artists and educators, started from a conversation about hidden threats and the fear of something dangerous but unseen. The underwater mine, or “Naval Mine”, serving as a graphic and visceral stand-in for so many of the lurking and festering threats we endured and continue to endure of late. On the larger societal scale, Covid-19, with its viral form so reminiscent of the mine itself, first as a complete unknown; then a constant overpowering, little-understood nightmare; then as a general confused anxiety about how to exist in the world with this thing ever-present. On the personal scale, physical and mental health issues that fester yet never fully reveal themselves; lingering pain that alters how we live while evading us. The mine sits just beneath the surface of the water. It is invisible as we navigate the waves, on calm days or inclement weather. It is harmless until it isn’t. It can bob and shift with the tide and become a habitat for those smaller lifeforms that see it in their daily travels, but when triggered, it changes everything. A delayed violence. Maggie and Adam have created an object that warns the viewer of itself. Of the dangers beneath the surface. The ghostly mine floats calmly, and the flags warn those passing by of the imminent threat.
-Adam Manly
The Walrus Club
John Michael Kohler Art Center
June 2018-June 2019
The JMKAC, in collaboration with Polly Morris, invited eight former Nohl Fellowship recipients to respond to the life and work of Mary Nohl. The curators wished to highlight her civic engagement, debunking the common myth that she was a “witch lady”. Sasso created seven small badges and ribbons and one large banner that presented various achievements and inside jokes from her life.
From Top to Bottom
Free Hearts Club, 2018, Embroidery thread, acrylic paint and wool felt
Mary's Optimist Society Badge, 2018, Embroidery thread, acrylic paint and wool felt
Walrus Club Banner, 2018, Handwoven tapestry in cotton
photo credit: John Michael Kohler Arts Center
The Front/The Place
Produced for Points of Departure The Ruth Davis Design Gallery
September 18th - November 24th 2019
This work invents and investigates a parallel between the Odd Fellows and the Jane Collective, a an underground network of women providing illegal abortions from 1969-1971 in Chicago, IL.
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Curators of the Points of Departure exhibition prompted artists to select and reflect on an object from the Helen Louise Allen Textile Collection; I chose neck-cloth, most likely a piece of fraternal order regalia. The color pallet, grandeur and theatrics of the presumed ceremony for which it was used intrigue me. Since seeing an exhibition of Odd Fellow artifacts at the Milwaukee Art Museum I have fetishized this type of organization, without knowing much about its purpose or history. In a response to neck-cloth, I am exploring a parallel between the Odd Fellows and the Jane Collective: an underground network of women providing illegal abortions from 1969-1971 in Chicago, IL.
Women wishing to receiving abortions from the collective called a phone number and were prompted to visit “The Front” an apartment that acted as a waiting room. When called for their appointment, they were led to a car, blindfolded, and driven to a second location, internally referred to as “The Place” where the actual abortion was performed.
Utilizing the material language of textiles, a craft passed down through matrilineal heritage, and the theatrical ritualism of the Odd Fellows, this installation explores the Jane’s sacred clandestine sisterhood. It’s a pastiche, a re-interpretation, a re-casting, a wish for the future.
46 First Ladies
April - December, 2021
WHHA, 2021, Silk, acrylic paint and handmade passementerie
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What an honor to reflect upon the life of Jacqueline Kennedy, who made such a tremendous impact in her brief three years at the White House. When I began researching for this work, I started by looking at a catalog I just happened to have about the historical objects in the White House. I examined the book with new attention to detail, and to my astonishment I discovered that this was a book by Jackie O about her historical renovation of the White House and founding the White House Historical Association. I was drawn to a photograph of a chair that had been reupholstered in dark red. The catalog notes that pictured is “one of a pair” of these chairs. I noted the poetic similarity to Jackie being left alone after JFK’s assassination, and how utterly remarkable it was that she wanted to keep wearing her bloodied suit to convey, through her clothing, what had happened. A gesture so tragic and it became iconic. In my own work I have an absolute respect for the history of objects and the stories they tell, and I also explore and work through trauma. I made this silk banner with handmade trim featuring a painting of the chair from her catalog in the color palette from the attire she wore on the tragic day that saddened the entire country.
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