Sometimes, We Remember Our Bedrooms

Sometimes, We Remember Our Bedrooms features Hamiltonian Fellow Luke Ikard in collaboration with Joshua Gamma, both at momentous junctures in their lives, revisiting the bedrooms of their youth. Through the playful combination of distorted domestic objects, playground equipment, and a time-warped soundtrack of memory, the artists create an installation and sculptural sound piece that recalls their childhoods and knowingly recreates an inaccurate representation of a past home.

Ikard explores the additive and subtractive nature of bunk beds as his language of longing. By fusing the intimate, fraternal space of the bunk bed with the public commons of the playground, Ikard plays with childhood conceptions of familiarity and safety. The fragmentary, fort-like domestic structures of Sometimes, We Remember Our Bedrooms function both as objects of play and places of rest, existing in the liminal space between mourning one’s childhood familial relationships and the hope of constructing one’s own future.

Gamma’s contribution to Sometimes, We Remember Our Bedrooms consists of a compilation of cassette sound and image collages made by the artist as a kid. Composed of song snippets, radio static, local commercials, sermons, and various oddities, these cassette works provide an idiosyncratic glimpse into the pre-internet, pre-corporate-FM-takeover airwaves of South-Central Louisiana. The revisited work finds Gamma, a new father, digging back into his childhood archives—reflecting on the excitement of discovery and genreless freedom afforded by the playful practice of his youth, and on the profound cultural exchange that radio can be untethered from bland monoculture.

For the safety of our community and staff, all visitors will be required to wear a mask and are expected to adhere to social distancing guidelines. Public restrooms are not available at this time.

Artists

Luke Ikard (b. 1990, Houston, TX) earned his MFA in Multidisciplinary Art from the Maryland Institute College of Art, Baltimore, MD (2017), and BFA in Studio Art from Sam Houston State University, Huntsville, TX (2014).

Joshua Gamma (b. 1984, Long Branch, NJ) earned his MFA in Curatorial Practice from the Maryland Institute College of Art, Baltimore, MD, and BFA in Design and BA in Studio Art from the University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX.