03 Oct 2017

Open Source Gallery Reimagining Tradition

Leigh Davis presents 'Vigil' as part of 'Reimagining Tradition,' a series of site-specific projects throughout NYC.

Leigh Davis creates artworks that honor specific communities or places, often in the form of shrines, altars, or other site-based installations. With her audio installation 'Vigil,' Davis urges her audience to join her in a death meditation, emphasizing the beauty and peace one might find in this universal experience. Inspired by her recent work with a local community of women continuing the tradition of bedside singing to the dying, Davis will install a spatially-considered, multi-channel audiowork inside the acoustically unique chapel in Brooklyn's historic Green-Wood Cemetery. Participants will be invited to move through this space, taking in the audio of people singing, while exploring the power of loss and memorial. In connection with 'Vigil' and in association with Green-Wood's annual Day of Remembrance, the Threshold Choir will host a live, public community song circle on October 21.

'Reimagining Tradition' is a program developed by Open Source Gallery to highlight intersections between socially engaged art and ritual practice through a series of site-specific projects by New York City-based artists. Pieces in 'Reimagining Tradition' defy the constraints of traditional gallery exhibitions and blur modern distinctions between art and the sacred. Artists in the program include: Leigh Davis, Erin Ellen Kelly, James Leonard, Jasmine Murrell, Nia I'man Smith, Ultracultural Others.

Leigh Davis' exhibition record includes Dixon Place, Morbid Anatomy Museum, and the Maryland Institute of Contemporary Art for socially engaged projects. She has received awards from the NYC Department of Cultural Affairs and the NYC Department of Aging. She teaches at The New School in New York City.