PRACTICE is excited to announce Novum, a show from second-year MFA students from the University of Pennsylvania for the month of May. Novum is an exhibition about looking at the everyday anew. The term novum, literally “new thing” in Latin, was coined by Marxist philosopher Ernst Bloch to describe how a truly novel concept or structure can provoke one to radically reassess reality. Artists Sol Kim, Cacie Jackson, and Noa Mori Machover have created novum that invite viewers to rethink quotidian entities (like cleaning robots, car parts, and even protest movements) as contingent processes rather than inevitable outcomes.
The results embrace defamiliarization and reimagination; these artworks reveal vast yet unseen networks of knowledge and labor that enable robots to think, cars to run, and activists to envision a new world. Novum insists on the transformative power of sustained attention, on embracing the curiosity of life as we know it.
It is co-curated by Elliott Loft, Sawyer Taylor-Arnold, and Avani Sastry, graduate students in the History of Art department at Penn.
PRACTICE Gallery is pleased to present Olivia Taylor’s (@lemon.bitch ) “The Studio” opening this Friday April 3rd 6-9pm!
About (in Olivia’s words):
For me the creation environment is often much more interesting than the final result. The Studio is a recreation of my own studio space which is packed with years of work that ranges from finished, to incomplete, to failed attempts and raw materials. It’s peppered with my collections of dumb things I’ve amassed over time that have been absorbed into my thought process and my work. It is my place to play, and to make things I thought would be funny.
Bio:
Olivia Taylor is a multimedia sculptor based in New York City. She received a BFA from FIT and an MFA from Brooklyn College, working as a professional fabricator for commercial projects and fine art. Her work mainly focuses on material and materiality. She creates tactile, stylized and interactive sculptures using materials such as silicone, foam, plastic and readymade objects. The work plays with how material possessions adhere to and form different aspects of our identities, specifically her own. She believes that material goods are actually embedded heavily with evidence of humanity in how they are conceived, produced, marketed and consumed by people.
#firstfridays #philadelphiaartists #philadelphiagallery #319 #contemporarysculpture
Thanks to everyone who came out to support my performance and video installation MicroMortality at Practice Gallery @practicegallery last week and a special thanks to @annecarsonsgf and @scottmcmahonphoto for all of your assistance with installation and documentation. I couldn’t have done it without you both! The exhibition is up through March 29!
MicroMortality explores our bodies and the afterlife at a molecular level through a projection mapped installation and microscopic performance. In a world where we are surrounded by AI “grief tech” companies in a thriving AI-driven digital afterlife industry and where chatbots are now “deadbots”, our ability to connect with the deceased is now seemingly more possible than ever before. However, the lack of physicality rendered in these AI interpretations creates a disconnect between the awareness of our own bodies in relation to the deceased. Katina acts as a translator of the afterlife, as she assumes the position of her late father as an enlightened being and investigates the makeup of our existence by making the micro-macro through large-scale projection mapping. This allows the audience to contemplate the relationship with their own physical state of being through direct confrontation with a former life that assumed the state of ash. The performance during the opening of the exhibition featured immersive fixed projections in addition to the live performed microscope projections generated. For the rest of the duration of the exhibition, the immersive projections are fixed for the viewer to experience.
#performanceart #microscopy #projectionmapping #videoinstallation #afterlife
MicroMortality will premiere @practicegallery this Friday, March 6 at 7pm in Philadelphia, PA. I am so excited to share this new experimental live microscopy performance and projection mapped installation. The exhibition will be up through March 29 with the projections and performance remnants. I hope to see you there Philly friends!! #microscopy #performanceart #newmedia #projectionmapping #videoart
Take an inside look into the studio of Katina Bitsicas as she creates her upcoming performance and exhibition “MicroMortality” for PRACTICE Gallery!
“MicroMortality explores our bodies and the afterlife at a molecular level through a projection mapped installation and microscopic performance. In a world where we are surrounded by AI “grief tech” companies in a thriving AI-driven digital afterlife industry and where chatbots are now “deadbots”, our ability to connect with the deceased is now seemingly more possible than ever before.
However, the lack of physicality rendered in these AI interpretations creates a disconnect between the awareness of our own bodies in relation to the deceased. By acting as a translator of the afterlife, I assume the position of my late father as an enlightened being and investigate visually the makeup of our existence by making the micro macro through large scale projection mapping.
This allows the audience to contemplate the relationship with their own physical state of being through direct confrontation with a former life that assumed the state of ash.
The performance during the opening of the exhibition will feature immersive fixed projections in addition to the live performed microscope projections generated. For the rest of the duration of the exhibition, the immersive projections will be fixed for the viewer to experience.” - Katina Bitsicas
The opening performance is March 6 at 7pm, and the exhibition will be running all month!
Reliquary
Presented by The Incubation Series
February 6th–March 1st, 2026
At PRACTICE
Practice Gallery, 319 N 11th St. Philadelphia, PA 19107
PRACTICE is excited to announce Reliquary, a show from second year MFA students from UPENN for the month of February.
Reliquary proposes to understand object and site through the accumulation of cultural memories. Oscillating between reproduction and reconfiguration, works by Dylan Li, Shay Myerson, and Ambika Trasi record abandoned architectural sites, rework physical sculpture through digital processes, and re-contextualize archival imagery. Through installation, sculpture, and video, the works in Reliquary participate in the construction of collective imaginaries, envisioned from the perspective of the subjects represented. The works in Reliquary occupy the space of haunting, between being and non-being.
David Dempewolf: ghost signals I–IV
December 5th 2025 - January 26th 2026
opening reception: January 9th from 6-9 PM
Practice Gallery is pleased to present ghost signals I–IV, a new video installation by Philadelphia-based artist @dempewolfdavid Dempewolf.
ghost signals I–IV is a single-channel video that creates a space for the lived encounter of world and self, where perception exists neither entirely outside nor fully inside, but in a reversible intertwining of the two. The work employs high-chroma colored paper and geometric forms to elicit strong afterimages. The audio, produced in collaboration with artist/musician Richard Harrod, translates color into number and then number into musical pitch, so that each shade corresponds to a specific audible note, creating a synesthetic experience.
#videoart #perception_dysmorphia #phillyarts #phillyfirstfriday #philladelphiagallery
First Friday opening @practicegallery with @philipchart new immersive installation, The Texture of Memory. Hope to see you all there!!
#philly #phillyfirstfriday #phillygallery #lightartist #installationart #mobileart
Practice Gallery is pleased to present My Darling Companions, an exhibition of new work by Minnesota-based artist Alison Hiltner. Hiltner’s mesmerizing multi-media installation will inhabit Practice Gallery from October 3 through October 26, with a reception for the artist on First Friday, October 3 from 6:00-9:00 pm. Hiltner’s forms draw from the structures and systems of the natural world, creating an uncanny sci-fi resonance between the paths of earthworms and an abundant, glowing pollen towers.
