Frances McDormand Presents ‘CRADLED’ in LA

From her Oscar-winning turns in Fargo, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, and Nomadland, Frances McDormand has mastered the art of storytelling. McDormand’s next role is not on a soundstage, but in a gallery. She steps into the persona of a Shaker in CRADLED, an immersive exhibition conceived and curated by McDormand and artist Suzanne Bocanegra in collaboration with the Shaker Museum in Chatham, New York.

Originally staged in upstate New York in 2024, the Los Angeles presentation of CRADLED utilizes objects, soundscapes, and live activations to explore the Shaker lifecycle of caregiving. It invites visitors into a rare environment where they are immersed—however briefly—in a vision of life shaped by devotion, communal industry, and radical care.

The exhibition opened with a reproduction of an adult-sized cradle in which Bocanegra and McDormand gently rocked guests during the opening activation on 20 November. That evening, singers from the Los Angeles–based volunteer choir Angeles Chorale contributed to Lang’s lullaby and the exhibition’s soundscape. In collaboration with Manuela LA, Shaker Lemon Pie was served to visitors at the opening.

Inspired by research conducted by the curators at the Shaker Museum, the installation features four historic Shaker cradles on loan from institutions ranging from New England to Kentucky. These are paired with tableaus of rocking chairs and baskets filled with mending projects. Here, visitors are encouraged to participate in the act of mending—a literal and figurative practice at the heart of Shaker values: to sit, to repair, and to create.

Central to the exhibition is the concept of the cradle, crafted by Shakers for both infants and the elderly. Because the celibate communities—established after Ann Lee led a small group from Manchester, England to New York in 1774—often sheltered more elders than children, they developed a deep culture of end-of-life care. These adult-sized cradles, rarely seen outside traditional circles, embody a society that sought perfection through gender and racial equality, pacifism, and inclusion. CRADLED brings these objects out of history and into the present, offering a striking reminder of dignity and support at every stage of life.

Artists’ statement from Frances McDormand and Suzanne Bocanegra:

‘To be cradled, held, supported by one’s community.

From birth to grave.

WITH RESPECT AND CARE.

To be mended by an exchange of trust, loyalty and compassion.

To be honored for one’s contribution to the whole and to believe one is contributing to the sustenance of the future.

The contemplation of these thoughts and possibilities is what we hope to offer you in this space.

TAKE YOUR TIME.

ROCK YOURSELF.

MEND, IF YOU LIKE.

YOU ARE WELCOME.’

Presented by Make Hauser & Wirth, the gallery’s platform for contemporary makers and engagement in the handmade, ‘CRADLED’ will be on view Saturdays and Sundays through 4 January 2026.

Scroll down to view images from the installation.