until the truth is disclosed is a interactive sculptural installation created during a six-month fellowship at VisArts, Rockville, MD.
“The initial proposal for the work was titled distraction/traction. My hope was to spend six months confronting my own anxiety-born coping habits of distraction with acts of traction, including carving and painting and building, and drawing, reading and writing, and consider the moment by moment choices we face in a busy, distracted world.
Inspired by two writings, bell hooks’ all about love and Johann Hari’s Stolen Focus, I am deeply interested in how we collectively and individually focus our time and energy while we try to operate within often exhausting systems where our attention itself has been commodified. Remembering how sacred our moments are becomes a daily quest. In this work, I wanted to create a reflective space that felt like a holy place and a childhood blanket fort all at once. What could it feel like to be in a quiet place returning to your sense of wonder, play, reflection inside systems you maybe didn’t choose? How do the material expectations blur as you face yourself in this seemingly contrasting structure?
Material decisions began with reflecting on my own childhood lessons in cross-stitch and how quilting, patch-working, and fabric mending appear globally in traditions of care such as clothing and bedding, and are also used to create a sense of home, and often used for story-telling. Steel studs are a standardized way of framing many of the spaces we occupy in the United States, particularly industrialized and institutional spaces; it is literally a system built around us over and over again with very particular sets of rules and guidelines. The material agency begins to change when they are imagined into something outside of the spaces we usually find them in.
Using the visual language of fractals and waves, that repeat at both galactic and microscopic scales, until the truth is disclosed examines how life is built within the structures and systems placed around us, often outside of our individual control, but still within our collective power to change, shift and reimagine.”
from the artist talk, March 2024
viewing the work
To view the piece, you can both view it from the outside and enter it. Upon entering, you spiral inward and then back out. There are 2 chambers inside, the first is a camera obscura, best viewed in the daylight. You are forced to take your time: close the doorways as much as you can and let your eyes adjust to truly give your mind time to see the world upside down. If you have a friend with you, have them go outside and move around and you’ll see them dancing upside down on the interior wall.
The second chamber is a place to rest, read, think, talk with a friend. Here the quilt is unbacked, allowing the light to come through, giving it a soft, colorful glow. In the reflective material at the core, you can see yourself reflected in the structure. I hope you will take time to consider each of these interactions.
“until the truth is disclosed”
Taken from a line in bell hooks’ all about love, the title “until the truth is disclosed” is a hope for the type of honest reflection that provides opportunity for true community care. In order to collectively work on the structural issues of society, culture, community, institutions, etc. there must simultaneously be a continued practice of inward spiraling and facing of the self.
I’m so grateful for the shared time that was given to this project from the community. There were collectively over 100 hours spent by individuals making the spiral quilt pieces. My mother, Jo Wallick not only contributed greatly to the quilted pieces, she embroidered all of the red symbols onto the fabric ceiling: these symbols were taken from cymatics (making sound waves visible through vibration) that were used to heal heart tissue. This was an especially important detail to me as the whole work was about creating a potentially heart-healing space.
Contributing Community Artists include:
Daniela Ayala | M Aragon |Madeline Ashley | Robin Bell | Dylan Bellusa | Nanette Bevan | Amaya Bullock | Erin Brayshaw | Lucius Brayshaw | Susan Brown | Michele Carlson | Sandy Curran | Tai Dolan | Joey Enriquez | Jeff Goodman | Eve Harclerode | Kamille Jackson | Judith Johnson | Ryan Kelly | Ed Landa | Jensen Li |Myles Muelberger | Fozia Mansoor |Hibbah Hajra Khan | Sara Mingote Mañes | Blaise Nettles | Sheri Newcomer | Guilong Niu | Michelle Niu | Christina Nguyen | Chris Peregoy | Keil Posner | Will Sandstedt | Henry Semmelmann | Vivian Semmelmann | Brooklyn Ramos | London Skye Roberson | Maggie Ruane | Gabriel Soto | Yeeun Um | Alyson Vieira | Jo Wallick | Geoff Wallick | Deb Warrenfeltz Amber Watkins | Frank Wells | Molly Williams
Review from The Heart Gallery Podcast:
“I had one of those “I wish I had thought of this!” experiences. It’s not an envious kind of feeling, more of a meeting-a-kindred-spirit kind. I had the feeling when I saw Jamille Wallick’s chosen quote outside her piece. I had the feeling again when I saw that she had a community co-created quilt composed of tiny spirals together draped over her gigantic spiral structure. I felt the feeling again when I found her camera obsura theater inside the structure, giving the visitor a view out onto the street. And I felt it again when at the inner culmination of the spiral I found she had created the most tranquil, colorful room. A tiny, surprise church of quilted stained glass, filled with books on nature, community, connection, and contemplation. A perfect Friday encounter.” - Rebeka Ryvola of The Heart Gallery Podcast