Celestial Energy of Abigail DeVille

Multidisciplinary artist Abigail DeVille joins Scene Shift: The Podcast for a conversation about cosmological time, informed intuition, and making space for history to speak.

Known for large-scale sculptures and site-specific installations that engage the material and lived memory of communities, Abigail discusses how she thinks about time as a cosmological framework: constellations, recycled energy, and the long ancient trip we're all on. From sourcing 43 burned cabinets off Craigslist for “Dio Vindice (Orion's Cabinet)” at the Geffen Contemporary to uncovering her great-grandfather's medical records at the Central State Hospital for the Colored Insane (the institution behind her work “*A Mourning”)* this episode moves between the deeply personal and the historically vast.

We also talk about working with 11 installers and knowing when to let go, the performative dimension of visual art spaces, her USC processional and what the students taught her about endurance, her bond with Cauleen Smith (19 years and counting, thanks to Skowhegan), and why her most recent work is the most restrained she's ever been and what that might mean.

Music by Claire McKeown "Sarabande in D minor"

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