Shana Moulton: Meta/Physical Therapy

Shana Moulton’s Meta/Physical Therapy, originally commissioned by and premiered at the Museum of Modern Art, comprises eight synchronized video projections on walls, floors, and shaped theatrical flats. It is part of Moulton’s long-running video project Whispering Pines, which began in 2002 as a collaboration with composer Nick Hallett. At the center of both the broader project and this specific work is Cynthia, Moulton’s semi-autobiographical alter ego—an anxious homebody surrounded by New Age healing products and wellness paraphernalia who is suddenly transported to stranger, more transcendent realms. 

In Meta/Physical Therapy’s multi-chapter narrative, Moulton examines how our lives as consumers are shaped by our deepest needs—and the often absurd lengths we will go to meet those needs. Blending magical realism and physical comedy, the work finds mysticism in the everyday, as ordinary objects take on lives of their own and Cynthia’s domestic world tips into something otherworldly and dreamlike. The exhibition includes a larger-than-life penguin race, synthetic rainbows, fiber-optic flowers, and many-hued menstrual cups, all drawing on nostalgia and consumer culture, blurring the line between Cynthia’s interior emotional life and the world around her. 

Meta/Physical Therapy inaugurates the newly renovated C. Blake McDowell Jr. Gallery, which was reimagined to support ambitious work in sculptural installation, video, performance, and other time-based media. Uniquely suited for immersive and technically expansive projects, the McDowell Gallery provides a dynamic setting for artists exploring the evolving relationship between art, technology, and contemporary life. The exhibition will also feature a live performance component by Moulton during the course of the exhibition.