Theories of Relativity

How do we connect to ourselves, our communities, and the past? Featuring the work of Rain Jacobson, Alicia Riccio, Em Slater, and Jacob Weinberg, "Theories of Relativity" examines relation as a framework for contact in and across space and time. Relativity here encompasses two connotations, at once emphasizing interdependence—and the shifting, shaping, and mutual inflection implied therein—and modes of kinship and community. Working across video, installation, photography, and mixed media, and employing a range of analog and digital technologies, the artists in this exhibition consider how connection is made both physically and virtually. Thus, this exhibition stages a conversation around the generative possibilities of communication, transference, and the matrix of interrelation.

This exhibition features the work of UPenn MFA graduates and is co-curated by Maggie North and Hilde Nelson. It is the twenty-fourth exhibition in the Incubation Series—a student-led initiative that fosters new ways of making, exhibiting, and seeing art. This exhibition is made possible with the generous support of the Center for Visual Culture and the Department of the History of Art at Bryn Mawr College, and the Department of the History of Art, School of Arts and Sciences, and the Department of Fine Arts, Weitzman School of Design at the University of Pennsylvania.

Rain Jacobson is a visual artist, curator, educator, and social worker based in Philadelphia, PA. Her photographic works provoke a nuanced exploration into materiality, sensation, and temporality.

Rain had her first solo exhibition in Seoul, South Korea in February 2024. She has presented her research at UPenn’s SAFELab (2024), The New School (2023), Institute of Contemporary Art (2023), Photoville NYC (2018), and Aperture Foundation (2017), among others. Rain has received grants and awards from Scribe Video Center (2024), the Sachs Program for Arts Innovation (2023), PhotoWings (2020), and the Hispanic Scholar Fund (2020).

She holds an MSW and an MFA from the University of Pennsylvania and a BFA in Photography & Imaging from New York University.

Alicia Riccio (b. 1992, Bridgeport, CT) is an interdisciplinary artist currently based in Philadelphia, PA. Their practice fragments, rearranges, and interpolates language to subvert histories and the authorial voice in an expanded exploration of care, loss, and queerness.

They received a BFA from The School of Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts University and MFA from The University of Pennsylvania. Riccio was a 2021-2022 participant of The Interdisciplinary Art and Theory Program, Jack Shainman Gallery, NY. In June 2023 they were artist in residence at the Marreseppu Artist Residency and Studio in Hokkaido, Japan. In July 2024 they will be an artist in residence at the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity in Alberta, Canada.

Selected exhibitions include: The Timbre of Distance, M.A.R.S at Engaru Metro Plaza, (Hokkaido, JPN)*solo; What’s a Public For?, Atelier Gallery, (Philadelphia, US); Under, Over ,Through, Charles Addams Gallery, (Philadelphia, PA, US); Gnaw, Heroes Gallery (New York City, US); << Der Arf Nira En Egar UOC >>, Estudio Marte 221, (Mexico City, MX); Courage! Near Infrared, Rinomina, (Paris, FR); Rican/Struction, Galería Agustina Ferreyra LLC, (San Juan, PR); “Make me an offer”, Bargain Spot, (Edinburgh, UK); and The Power of Negative Thinking, New Art Center, (Newton, US).

Jacob Weinberg (b. 1991, Harrisburg, PA) is an artist living and working in Philadelphia, PA. Jacob makes work that highlights slippages between the technical and social dimensions of inherited institutions. Working across media, he operates within the details of mechanisms that both haunt and shape contemporary conditions of rationality, uncertainty, and subjectivity.

Jacob received an MFA from the University of Pennsylvania and a BFA from the Maryland Institute College of Art. Recent exhibitions include What’s a Public For? at Atelier Gallery, Shuttle Service at The Arts League, and Under at Charles Addams Gallery. He has also presented research at Virginia Tech (Blacksburg, VA), Ryerson University (Toronto, CA), and NYU Shanghai (Shanghai, CN). Jacob was a participant in TSA’s residency in 2021.

Em Slater's artistic practice is grounded in ethnographic theory and merges experimental moving image with media installations. Her art has been made alongside her work as a union organizer and brings with it ongoing inquiries surrounding the intractability of work and its effect on our lives. It draws on frameworks within ethnographic theory that look critically at the relationship between the subject matter and the viewing experience. Within these parameters, she probes themes of separation, connection, control, defense, similarity, difference, self, and others.

Em Slater holds an MFA from The University of Pennsylvania, an MS in Labor Studies from the University of Massachusetts, and a BA from Bennington College.