all signs point
2026
Performance, installation, sound; cotton, abaca, pigment, birch, packing tape
Windgate Studio + Design Center; Osage, Caddo, & Quapaw homelands (Fayetteville, AR)
All Signs Point was a modular installation and performance by Serena Caffrey featuring large, text-based banners made out of handmade paper considering the political implications of our attention, presence, action, and ambivalence.
At first glance, the sensory delight and imaginative versatility of the installation feels like something of childhood play, with animated language simply guiding us to “WALK, SUPPORT, GATHER.” These and other words function like mantras: easy encouragements to direct action in gentle and productive ways. However, their phrasing is fickle, and could easily be shuffled. “DON’T WAIT” when reversed implies an entirely different meaning: “WAIT, DON’T.” Meaning is rendered ambiguous, or at least in constant renegotiation. Each day, Caffrey, who grew up in Fayetteville, rearranged the banners, allowing them to take on new, layered significance in relationship with local place histories, institutional memory, and Caffrey’s longstanding land-based performance practice. A group performance activating the works occurred concurrent with the opening reception and included original musical compositions by Caffrey alongside improvisatory interludes in which the physical objects of the installation contributed to the sonic cacophony.