Curated by Yes We Cannibal

Featuring Work By
Lily LaGrange
Louisa Minkin & Francis Summers [LMFS]
Jon Peterson
Jak Ritger
Panacea Theriac
Tunde Wey

In Tibetan Buddhism, hope and fear are inextricably linked in a single word, re-dok. This is the ground of suffering, but also the condition of dreams. We aspire and we fear in a forever recurring cycle. Yet the dream itself operates as more than a private movie theater. It is also a cycle of domination. Each night we are beholden to go back. Eventually we spend a third of our life there. We are hostages.

What Are Dreams If Not Hostage Situations? is about a special kind of figure who is native to the dream. He is of obscure intent. He is able to appear to be one thing but also stand for some other thing. The figure may appear to be a person or a table or a shoe or a mirror or your mother but actually stand for a starfish or a tomato or your mortality. This is his mask as he goes about his work: a form of processing that is parallel to our consciousness.

This show is curated by Mat Keel and Liz Lessner as Yes We Cannibal, and features the work of Lily LaGrange, Louisa Minkin & Francis Summers [LMFS], Jon Peterson, Jak Ritger, Panacea Theriac, and Tunde Wey, originated by Alabama Contemporary for Gadsden Museum of Art in 2026.

About The Curators

Yes We Cannibal was founded in 2020 by Liz Lessner and Mat Keel as a non-transactional platform for new art and thought. We work mutually with a constellation of other artists and thinkers to produce exhibits and events grounded in physical encounter and human interaction while exploring the boundaries of our collective post-institutional near future. We orient to two audiences. The first is intimate, immediate and local. The second is larger, often time-delayed, and geographically dispersed; gathered together as we amplify emergent aspects of our work through the publication of physical media including video, books, and recordings.

Opening May 8 | 5 – 8 PM

Arts Trail on Broad
Gadsden Museum of Art
FREE TO THE PUBLIC

Generous funding for this exhibition and related programming is provided by: