Presented by the Center for Art Research

The Whisperers
January 17- February 15, 2026
curated by Tannaz Farsi and Simone Ciglia

Saturday, January 17
Curator walkthrough from 4:30-5:00 p.m.
Opening reception from 5:00- 7:00 p.m.

Gallery Hours: Saturdays & Sundays from noon- 4:00 p.m. and by appointment
Location: Ditch Projects, 303 S 5th St #165, Springfield, OR 97477

To whisper is to hold words in the mouth, away from the vocal cords, letting them rumble, mutter, whistle or hiss out into the world, often into the ear of another, intent on receiving. This act is sometimes seen as clandestine; a private form of communication intended to incite and arouse rebellion. In this exhibition, we see its potential for arousal as a means of creation: to establish networks of tangential affinities, to parallel multiple modes of artistic and curatorial practice that can expand the potential for historical recovery, and to acknowledge longstanding systems of oppression by engaging practices that assert their own terms of representing subjecthood and empowering sovereignty.   

We began the idea for this exhibition by gathering artworks that initiate forms of address through traces of past events in existing archives or document singular moments that necessitate the creation of new archives. This methodology, one that the art historian Hal Foster observed within art practice at the turn of this century, links current contemporary works to early 20th century during which time artists began to unveil the symbolic and, subsequently, the semiotic conditions of objects and images produced, manufactured or advertised within the public sphere. 

Following their own archival impulses, the artists in this exhibition have developed practices centered on searching, gathering and instituting connections. They research existing archives, retrieving different typologies of information to reconfigure in their artworks. In this process, they interrogate the institution of organized historical collecting by shedding light on its biases, amnesias, and oversights.

This exhibition is made possible by the University of Oregon Department of Art’s Center for Art Research and the Ford Family Foundation.