Platform: Julia Gartrell, Repair Station, 2025
Wood, tiles, and mixed media
Commissioned by the Moody Center for the Arts, Rice University

The latest installation in the Moody’s Platform series features the work of Julia Gartrell. In collaboration with the Humanities Research Center at Rice University, the Moody invited the artist to conceive of a physical installation responding to the topic of "repair," and the resultant project is comprised of a site-specific installation and workshops developed together with the artist.  

For several years Gartrell has centered her work on notions of “making do”, material plasticity, Appalachian craft history, and radical approaches to repair. Following this line of inquiry, in 2020, Gartrell started the Radical Repair Workshop which consists of a traveling repair shop, gallery, and workshop space housed in a vintage camper. The project encourages participants and viewers to consider their relationship to mending, sentimental objects, or single-use items. She invites participants to engage with non-traditional modes of repair that may forsake functionality to encourage a personal investigation of the object’s story and its emotional meaning.  

These areas of focus informed Gartrell’s work for the Platform series, titled Repair Station, as she developed an outdoor sculptural installation sited on the Rice campus that asks visitors to not only visually engage but to think about elements in their own lives that might need repair. Her monolithic sculpture provides free materials and tools for the public to use for their own repair needs. The installation also includes audio-visual sources that convey histories around traditions and methods of repair as well as some practical advice. 

 In conjunction with the installation, a series of workshops will be held in the spring that will allow participants to experiment with different ways of “repair.”

The Moody’s groundbreaking Platform series brings temporary, site-specific projects to campus by inviting artists to respond to artworks, architectural structures, and research at Rice University. Platform: Julia Gartrell is organized by Frauke V. Josenhans, Curator, in collaboration with the HRC and is made possible by the Moody Center for the Arts Founders Circle.

About the Artist:

Julia Gartrell (b. 1986, Durham, NC) is a sculptor who uses repurposed materials to highlight traditions of making and restoring, especially in the context of Appalachian craft and culture.  Employing a creative and playful approach, she incorporates oral history, lore, and relics into her practice. In 2020, she started a mobile art project called the Radical Repair Workshop in order to engage with different communities through the act of making.

Gartrell received an MFA from the Rhode Island School of Design and a BA from Kalamazoo College. She has exhibited nationally and internationally, and has participated in residencies at Fine Arts Work Center, Provincetown, MA; Western Carolina University, Cullowhee, NC; Arrowmont School of Arts & Crafts, Gatlinburg, TN; The Power Plant Gallery at Duke University, Durham, NC; Ox-Bow School of Art, Saugatuck, MI;  and Ifitry Artist Residency, Casablanca, Morocco