INTO A GEM

Cara Levine and Hannah Rubin

March 29 - May 31, 2025

Closing Celebration: Saturday, May 31, 5-7:30pm

After the fires and amidst the current political climate, artists Cara Levine and Hannah Rubin, whose creative practices are both devoted to working with grief and who co-run Outlook Is __ Projects, decided to pivot from directing the space, to using it to respond directly to all the pain coursing through this moment. This exhibition proposes that the gallery, often a site exclusively for presentation of completed works, becomes a site for process and collaboration. Throughout April and May, Levine and Rubin will invite both public and private collaboration through their respective works. The series will culminate in a public celebration on May 31st. 

The exhibition takes its title from the last lines of Arena, a poem by Ariana Reines, “Of a wing & because the less we could agree/ The more it seemed we were revolving/ Into a gem.”

Like so many in Los Angeles, Levine lost a family home to the fires. As a method for processing the gravity of this loss, she is inviting, first her family, and then friends, to make memory drawings in sand and then to cast those drawings in pewter. The invitation is for an intimate remembering and making session - to connect to one another and respect the depth of these wounds. For now, these sculptures are called Silverlinings. 

Five Walks (To and From the Dream Pool), presented by Rubin, an artist and somatic practitioner, is a community-wide invitation to participate in a series of embodied rituals for being with sorrow and loss. Within each ritual, participants will practice embodiment and connection, linger inside beautiful text, write into dreams, and hold raw clay in their hands as they walk quietly around the neighborhood. The clay shapes, made by individual hands, will amass together over the course of the exhibition, becoming a monument to the larger social body needed for processing complex loss.

If you are interested in participating in Silverlinings email info@outlookisprojects.com. 

If you are interested in participating in Five Walks (To and From the Dream Pool) sign up here.