Expand

Performance, Photographs, Videos, Installation, and Objects.

Images, Videos, and Objects by Hillerbrand+Magsamen
Written by Kirk Lynn

EXPAND, is a collaboration between the artistic team Hillerbrand+Magsamen and playwright Kirk Lynn. Stephan Hillerbrand and Mary Magsamen have explored the relationship between their home, family histories, and daily life for over two decades. Their diverse creative practice—photography, time-based media, sculpture, and performance—celebrates the transformative power and beauty inherent in the everyday. EXPAND features a large-scale video projection and an evolving tapestry of visual and written materials. To create this multi-media installation, the artists extracted and digitally scanned samples of materials found inside the walls of their house. These scans were then manipulated through various AI programs, creating a mesmerizing, experimental video. Lynn’s writing shapes and enhances the narrative, resulting in a collaborative project that grapples with the journey of life and the complexity and potential found in its transitions. Uncanny and poetic, EXPAND invites visitors to slow down and consider our own connections to these ordinary materials and everyday moments through a significant shift in scale and temporality.

What is a house?

It was built for protection but not for attack.

It was built to keep the weather out, but not to let the world in.  

It was built for silence on the street, not celebration in the city.

It was built for firm attachment, not easy floatation.

It was built for denying regret, not admitting fault.  

I want to find the last place in my house where my daughter’s breath is still hidden.

I want to find the first place in the house where my son fell down.

I want to track the echo of my last dog’s barking.

I want to find one hair combed out from the day we returned from our honeymoon. 

I want to chart every place of harm, every stubbed toe, every bump on the head, every finger caught in the door.