Exhibition Essay by Coco McCracken, 2026
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The Childlike Empress: Bastian. Why don’t you do what you dream, Bastian?
Bastian: But I can’t, I have to keep my feet on the ground!
The Childlike Empress: Call my name. Bastian, please! Save us!
Bastian: All right! I’ll do it! I’ll save you! I will do what I dream!
– The Neverending Story, 1984
When are dreams most potent, most transformative? In the curious child? Still unsure where reality ends and imagination begins? Or the daring teenager? At the cusp of the strong conviction and open-minded naivete? Perhaps, the transformation happens later, as grown folk, when we realize our hours on earth are limited and precious. Maybe age has nothing to do with awareness, that potent ideas can belong to anyone, anytime. It’s not the dreamer or the artist that’s solely responsible for change, but the viewer, the person standing in front of the gallery wall, the newspaper, the concert, the playground, the sky full of clouds. It’s up to them as much as it’s up to the artist, to take inspired action.
In these sculptures, Verónica A Pérez has diligently crafted wire and found objects with woven hair. In an attempt to grasp a physical embodiment of a culture affronted with erasure. Colonialism’s effect on any place can leave us searching for the right language to express lost culture, ritual, and in many cases, life. What if that language does not exist? What if we cannot express this overwhelming loss through an alphabet? What materials are left? What glittering pieces of hope can we embed in them?
Stand close, then roam. Tilt your head left and right. Stop for a moment. Do you see a tiny coffin? That jewel that adorned your neck once as a choker? Black contains a rainbow, did you know? Let your eyes wave across the soft curves and be pierced by the studs. Let yourself stand in silence at the open mouth of a grotto, give reverence to the dead. Give your daydreams to the living.
Fantasy might envelope us so fiercely, that it shields us from reality, but no other form of communication is more effective at showing alternative angles, hidden trap doors. A sculpture, a film, a book, might be a Trojan Horse of ideas. Our sensibilities are hunting for allegory in story and song. Our inner children are gathering.
Start at the beginning, section into three. Over, under, on top. Repeat and repeat until the ancient pattern emerges. Can children still braid their own hair when they lose their mothers and fathers? They will, they will just have to sit cross-legged in a row, and make a plait for one other.
Call my name. Save us!
Calling from the past, the present, the future.
Will you do what you dream?
