While the James F. Ranii Foyer Gallery was transformed into a mundane office-like space during the Fullerton Museum Center\u2019s open house Saturday, there was much more to it than meets the eye.<\/p>\n
Part of the open house was the opening reception for \u201cDreams and Liminality,\u201d a photography-based exhibition created by mixed-media artist Taylor Moon Castagnari. The exhibit combines photos of familiar areas like shopping malls and airports with photos of someone, usually Castagnari herself, suspended in the air from an aerial hammock.<\/p>\n
Castagnari said she sought an opportunity to combine her skills as an aerialist and an artist, as well as explore the contrast between banal places and the daydreams people may have in those environments. This led to her creation of the photographic series.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you think about liminal environments, there’s aspects that it’s frozen in time, that they have aspects of nostalgia,\u201d Castagnari said. \u201cIt’s almost this disembodied experience, and even you have your \u2018work self\u2019 and your \u2018personal self,\u2019 and what is this \u2018in-between yourself?\u2019 I wanted to explore all of those questions.\u201d<\/p>\n
Liminal spaces are described as transitionary environments, akin to waiting rooms or hallways, that bridge the gap between one place and another.<\/p>\n
Castagnari portrayed these spaces by using Photoshop to place them onto photos of her or another model suspended from a hammock taken in her home studio. She also occasionally added imagery like pools of water, light or clouds to inject a sense of surrealism.<\/p>\n
\u201cFloating in the ocean or floating in the air and combining those together and creating these spaces where it’s very meditative, I thought, would be interesting for people,\u201d Castagnari said.<\/p>\n
Beyond these pictures, which lined the walls of the gallery walkway, another room within it housed a conference room-like setting with more pictures, as well as a sculpture and video of an aerialist and cotton clouds partially adorning the walls. On the table were copies of \u201cUninspired Times,\u201d a fictional newspaper Castagnari made that \u201creported\u201d on the happenings of inanimate objects in her home.<\/p>\n
In addition to Castagnari\u2019s exhibit, the open house highlighted renovations to the museum center\u2019s rental spaces, including the Aimee Aul Studio classroom. James F. Ranii, a board treasurer and finance chair for the museum center, estimated $2 million was spent by the state of California on the renovations.<\/p>\n
Compared to the old classroom, which Ranii described as \u201cdreadful,\u201d the new classroom is intended to be versatile, fit around 30 people and be able to be rented out for $150 an hour during open hours.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The room\u2019s new mural \u201cResilience\u201d was primarily completed by creative supervisor Shay Jones. It features six plants and was intended to honor the original owners of the land where the museum center stands.<\/p>\n
\u201cBecause it’s so night and day how it looked from the classroom before, having this here, I think is really important to the museum,\u201d Jones said. \u201cIt\u2019s definitely my best work.\u201d<\/p>\n
With the open house, the museum center hoped to promote their rental spaces due to a recent loss in funding from the city of Fullerton. Ranii said the center is now self-sustaining under their Fullerton Museum Center Association.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe’re looking to bring people in that might rent this place, because we need the money,\u201d Ranii said. \u201cIt’s a great place for the community to enjoy art, music, whatever we’ve got.\u201d<\/p>\n
Castagnari\u2019s father Tom Moon agrees. He asserts that small local museums like the Fullerton Museum Center help educate the public on and bring them culture, which is why work like Castagnari\u2019s is important to showcase there.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople need art. They need to stop and look at art and appreciate art. We all have different opinions about art, and that’s a great monologue and dialogue. We talk about the art and see what we can pull away from it,\u201d Moon said. \u201cArt brings community together.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cDreams and Liminality\u201d will be on display until March 7.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"While the James F. Ranii Foyer Gallery was transformed into a mundane office-like space during the Fullerton Museum…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":151845,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[163,165,164,2308,4437,2628,6607,69567],"class_list":["post-151844","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-anaheim","tag-anaheim","tag-anaheim-headlines","tag-anaheim-news","tag-art","tag-exhibit","tag-fullerton","tag-museum","tag-open-house"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/151844","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=151844"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/151844\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/151845"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=151844"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=151844"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=151844"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}