Experience yet another transformation of our space, at the new exhibit by Philadelphia based artist Paige Miller, we invited her to come back after what she did in the ReDRooM last year, this time, her site-specific installation "DIFFUSION" is a mirror maze inside iMPeRFeCT, similar to something in a carnival fun house. The maze eventually leads viewers to the gallery’s hotspot and project space, the ReDRooM a.k.a. the bathroom, where Ashley Carrega has created "Now And At The Hour Of Our Death", an installation that alludes to the game "Bloody Mary", a ritual practice she remembers from childhood. It was something of a dare, which was clouded in mystery, folklore and history.  

About "DIFFUSION"

"With the use of warped and taut reflective material and dim blue filtered lighting I have created an immersive environment that gives the viewer a completely different experience to a traditional gallery exhibit.  The exhibition title, “Diffusion” is loosely defined as the spreading of something more widely. Not only will the blue light from the ceiling be diffused throughout the space, but also the flow of the audience will be in constant flux."  Paige Miller

In The ReDRooM

Ashley Carrega's "Now And At The Hour Of Our Death"

"The mirror as an object has always fascinated and lured me, as I think it does most humans, and even some animals like birds.  The mirror can be seen as an opposite world mimicking our own, or even a portal. It opens space, spreads light, depicts reality and sometimes distorts it.  This ritual of staring into a dim lit mirror is associated with the phenomenon of self hypnosis, often termed the "strange face illusion".  Starring into mirrors for long periods of time under low light causes hallucinatory dissociative effects, and causes our ingrained facial recognition system to misfire. The misfire is a detachment between ego and body that produces facial apparitions of deformed traits, relatives, the deceased, archetypal faces, unknown persons, even animals and monstrous forms." Ashley Carrega

The historical "Bloody Mary" was Queen Mary I of England. She was nicknamed so because of her Marian Persecutions of non-Catholics in the 16th Century. She was thought of as being blood thirsty in her quest to reinstate Roman Catholicism in England. She married later in life and had multiple false pregnancies.  The Bloody Mary ritual, involves staring into a mirror with a lit candle, repeating "Bloody Mary" as a mantra to invoke a spirit. This spirit once arrived would appear to you as the face either of your future husband or of a skull, representing your death before marriage. Others would see Mary herself, sometimes in a vicious state and she is said to try and gauge out your eyes.