Leidy Churchman, Space Remembers

Center of the Universe (Ratna)

 Leidy Churchman's "Space Remembers" transforms the concept of "home" into an unstable, vast and wonderfully vibrant existence. In her paintings that blend domestic imagery, animals, celestial forms, shells, and fragmented bodies, Churchman refuses to view space as a neutral background. Instead, space seems to carry memories, beliefs, and physical experiences. This reminds one of Gaston Bachelard's "The Poetics of Space," where home is understood not just as architecture, but as a psychological and imaginative structure. Churchman further advances this idea: home becomes cells and the universe, and porous.

When the human body is placed beside non-human life. In Center of the Universe (Ratna), the disintegrating body and references to the Tibetan Buddhist practice of chöd suggest that the self is not fixed or separate. Churchman's world places animals, humans, plants, and matter within a shared relational system, rather than a hierarchical structure, much like "pantheism."

Center of the Universe (Buddha)

Moreover, Churchman's enlarged shells, changing scales, and surreal space transformations make the viewing experience physical rather than detached. Therefore, Space Remembers is not so much about representing a stable world, but rather exploring: how perception and memory are constantly reorganized through the spaces we inhabit. The exhibition places the audience within a network of relationships, and consciousness seems to be distributed among different bodies and environments.

-Anan Zou, Group B