Adrienne Moumin

New Photo Collage Series - Holding Space

My new photo collage series, "Holding Space," is an allegorical exploration of the difficulty of humans to witness feelings of others, without resorting to minimizing or toxic positivity.

The difficulty of “holding space” for another – their perspective, experiences, and basic human needs for being seen and heard – became apparent to me in 2025-26, after a massive tree destroyed much of my house. A year of physical displacement and incessant administrative tasks were traumatic and destabilizing.

The contemporaneous 24-7 news cycle of race-based violence, kidnappings, imprisonments, and murders mirrored and compounded the devastation I felt in my own life. I have often thought about the lives of immigrants to the US, living in fear, in detention, in publicly-recorded private moments of terror while being abducted. I have intentionally sat in silence with these imaginings, and realized the difficulty of relating to these situations for more than a brief moment.

"I Lift My Lamp Beside the Golden Door," the first in this series, takes its name from "The New Colossus," the Emma Lazarus poem at the base of the Statue of Liberty. Referencing not only the (now destroyed) promise of America as the land of opportunity and welcome, it depicts a lantern in front of a luxury Manhattan apartment building - the "golden door" every immigrant dreams of opening when they come here.

How can we – or can we – simply listen, witness, and “Hold Space” for other individuals, with all of us in our imperfect humanity?

 

New Work as of July 2026 - Holding Space Series

"Circular Reasoning," recently completed, represents the multifaceted (and often fascinating), yet meaningless vocalizing when attempting to prove a point by employing a defective argument whereby the premises are just as much in need of proof or evidence as the conclusion. [Adapted from Wikipedia.]

The argument might be articulate and beautifully crafted, yet remains unproven.