Opening on February 28, 2025, the latest installation in the Moody’s Platform series will feature 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 will be 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 inform Gartrell’s work for the Platform series, as she creates an outdoor sculptural installation sited on the Rice campus that will ask visitors to not only visually engage but to think about elements in their own lives that might need repair. Her monolithic sculpture will function as a repair station providing free materials and tools for the public to use for their own repair needs. The installation will also include 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.