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Effective January 1: Masks are Optional in VisArts’ Classrooms and Studios
By Mark Jenkins
July 9, 2025
IN THEIR COLLABORATIONS, CHRIS COMBS AND CECI COLE MCINTURFF juxtapose technology and nature. Tech dominates — forebodingly — in the local duo’s VisArts collaboration, Unforeseen. The shadow-cloaked piece was inspired by the federal Waste Isolation Pilot Project, which stores radioactive nuclear detritus deep under southeastern New Mexico.
That site was supposed to bear a huge warning label — the so-called “Sandia message,” named for the Sandia National Laboratory — that begins, “This is not a place of honor.” But 26 years after the facility opened, the cautionary text has yet to be deployed. So Combs and Cole McInturff made 15 banners, each with a fragment of the Sandia message, and hung them on the walls of the Common Ground Gallery. The placards surround a partial globe that is lighted only by reflections from snippets of black-and-white video beamed by four projectors. While most of the globe is cleanly machined, its bottom is ominously jagged. These imperfections mirror those of the twisted bark, branches, and hooves suspended above the broken orb. The dangling objects represent “figures from a distant future,” according to a gallery statement.
The story told by the installation is both explicit and furtive. Viewers who don’t read the VisArts handout probably won’t get the Sandia-message reference, but they’ll certainly understand that Combs and Cole McInturff are depicting a potential environmental disaster. How does the world end? Not with a bang but a flicker.
Chris Combs and Ceci Cole McInturff:Â Unforeseen
Through July 20 at VisArts’ Common Ground Gallery, 155 Gibbs St., Rockville. visartscenter.org. 301.315.8200.
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