With over 750 military bases in about 80 countries around the world, the US military challenges our notions of “American soil.” As the largest contributor towards climate change, its global impacts are difficult to see and measure. Through video, audio, and sculpture, Sound of Fire contemplates the effects, rhetoric, and narratives of “US military,” proposing listening and other sensorial engagements as a way of “seeing.” Works in this exhibition rely on speculative fiction to conjure new understandings of what it means to occupy and what it means to resist and reclaim.

Artists: Nayda Collazo-Llorens, Jonathan Perez, Eric Rivera Barbeito, Jezabeth Roca Gonzalez and Joshua Roca Gonzalez, Jess Shane and Katie Mathews, in collaboration with Mansoor Adayfi, John Dominic Colón

About the VisArts 2022 Bresler Curator

Gabrielle Tillenburg (she/her) is an independent curator from Rockville, MD. As an art historian, she specializes in modern and contemporary Caribbean and diasporic art while pursuing her doctorate at the University of Maryland in College Park. Her research focuses on artistic responses to US military presence on the Caribbean and Pacific islands. Bridging her scholarship and curatorial practice, she is interested in artist activism in independence movements, interpretations of time in photographic media, and contemporary use of craft materials. Her curatorial projects have included Re∙Cast: Sculptural Works from the AMA Collection at UMD Art Gallery, Past Process at Strathmore, Soft Serve at Willow Street Gallery, and public art installations at Torpedo Factory. She has worked on Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery exhibitions such as the Outwin Boochever Portraiture Competition and was the Exhibitions Coordinator at Strathmore. She holds a BFA in Film from the University of Central Florida.