Fraction, Refraction
Ramapo Curatorial Prize exhibition curated by Zuhra Amini featuring artists who work with fraught histories.
Fraction/Refraction brings together Kerr Cirilo, Clare Hu, and Basharat Ali Syed, whose image-based works push and pull highlighted, forgotten, or obscured layers of history to offer entry points into its constructed truths. The title references the scientific process of refraction whereby a wave bends as it passes through at least two mediums of differing densities, altering the wave’s speed and direction. The exhibition considers how national narratives bend in relation to the density of images that alter personal and collective memories. Cirilo, Hu, and Syed each focus on their encounters with parts and pieces of saturated, neglected, and exploited images sourced from archives, documentaries, and online databases within their areas of research. In a time when images are easily distrusted, the artists in this exhibition are concerned with the vulnerability of images. Fraction, Refraction makes a case for looking beyond the image at face value to tune into the labor and process by which political narratives are shaped in its failure.
An opening reception will be held Wednesday, October 28, from 5-7 P.M. There will be a curator’s talk at 6 p.m.
The Ramapo Curatorial Prize is awarded each year to a second-year graduate student at Bard College’s Center for Curatorial Studies.
Image: Clare Hu, 5010 variation 5, 2026, print on cotton thread, polyester thread, cotton duck, hardware, three panels measuring 34 x 120 inches each.
