Primordial

Primordial
Meg Foley & Carmichael Jones

Installation hours:
- Thu, April 23, 11AM–10PM
- Fri, April 24, 11AM–10PM
- Sat, April 25, 11AM–6PM
- April 27–May 8, 2026: Mon–Fri 11AM–5PM

Run: April 23–May 8, 2026
Location: EMPAC Public Spaces — Level 3, 4, 5 Bridges and Evelyn’s Café. Visible from all lobbies.
Admission: Free, no RSVP necessary.

How are our bodies formed by the shifting ground that holds us up? How do we reshape and reform over time? How are we aligned in space and time with the environment around us?

Beyond EMPAC’s glass walls, the horizon converges with printed and projected natural landscapes inhabited by a being that is both body and stone. In this site-specific, multi-channel video installation by collaborators and co-parents Meg Foley and Carmichael Jones, the shifting presence on screen becomes a vortex of gestational and geological time: Foley performs “rock drag,” embodying geologic processes by mimicking a boulder’s sped up evolution through movement while hidden beneath layers of fabric. Responding to the histories of the natural terrains where the footage was shot, the figure becomes both a character within and a physical extension of the landscape—a singular body that is deeply organic but never fully human.

Installed across multiple levels of EMPAC’s glass enclosed bridges, photographic stills printed on stretched lycra become projection surfaces, multiplying the figure so it can be seen from several vantage points as well as close-up within the bridges themselves. The sounds of Foley’s body in motion—heartbeat, breath—form an ambient soundscape, blurring the intimacy implied by the fabric-covered body with the expansiveness of the surrounding landscapes. The result is a meditation on queer gestation, selfhood, geology, and transformation, inviting a slower pace of attention and an expansive sense of scale.

Main image: Meg Foley & Carmichael Jones, Primordial, video still. Courtesy the artist. Photo: Carmichael Jones.