“ALL THAT YOU LEAVE BEHIND”: A collaborative, multimedia exhibition featuring the work of textile artist Diana Weymar and photographer Nelson Hancock will be on view January 5 through March 16 at the Arts Council of Princeton. A gallery talk and opening reception will take place on January 5 from 2 to 5 p.m. in the Arts Council’s Taplin Gallery.

The Arts Council of Princeton will present “All That You Leave Behind,” a collaborative multi-media exhibition with textile artist Diana Weymar and photographer Nelson Hancock, in the Taplin Gallery January 5 through March 16. All are welcome to the gallery talk on Saturday, January 5, 2-3 p.m., immediately followed by an opening reception from 3 to 5 p.m.

Of this exhibition, which explores narrative and artistic interpretations of personal, everyday objects, the artists write, “We craft ourselves through word and deed, but also through collecting. Our collections speak volumes about how and with whom we’ve spent our lives. Some things are for public display, others are privately preserved. Decorative tchotchkes share space with tools of everyday life. Souvenirs and old letters fill a box along with crafting materials or a collection of old pencil sharpeners that are ‘too good to throw out.’ Curating and hoarding meet in drawers and closets on cluttered shelves. ‘All That You Leave Behind’ uses an archeology that is both concrete and imaginative to conjure an ambiguous narrative. A shelf of trophy objects overseen by a hero’s portrait pushes the story one direction while a poison pen letter, carefully preserved for decades in a folder with a rusty paperclip, pulls it in another.

In our personal spaces, it can be easy to accommodate multiple, sometimes contradictory, narratives to find comfort in and make meaning out of our lives. In this exhibit, there is a play between the documentary mode and a more creative form of translation. With objects and text fragments reproduced in textile and thread, the work continually returns to the inherent conflict between authenticity and representation. While the photographs offer a sense of transparency, the stitching creates more distance and recalls the intervention and embellishment of the artists.”

Nelson Hancock studied photography and anthropology at Princeton University and later earned a PhD in cultural anthropology from Columbia University. He has worked at the American Museum of Natural History, creating exhibits from the museum’s archives and returning them to the Siberian communities where they were shot a century earlier. He later ran the Nelson Hancock Gallery and directed the Critical and Visual Studies Program at Pratt Institute. He now works as a commercial and fine art photographer in Brooklyn. 

Diana Buri Weymar is a textile artist and activist. She has worked on projects with Build Peace (Nicosia, Bogota, Zurich and Belfast), the Arts Council of Princeton, the Nantucket Atheneum, the W.E.B Du Bois Center at UMass Amherst, the University of Puget Sound, The Zen Hospice Project (San Francisco), the Peddie School, Open Arts Space (Damascus, Syria), Trans Tipping Point Project (Victoria, BC), New York Textile Month, the Textile Arts Center (Brooklyn, NY), and The Wing (NYC). She has exhibited her work in both Canada and the United States. She has curated for NRG Energy’s headquarters in Princeton, and this is her fourth exhibit at the Arts Council of Princeton.

The Arts Council of Princeton’s Taplin Gallery is located at the Paul Robeson Center for the Arts, 102 Witherspoon Street, Princeton. For more information, visit artscouncilofprinceton.org or call (609) 924-8777.