Opening Reception: February 13, 7 - 10pm

Show Run: February 13 & 14, 2025

Artists: Sarah Avolio, Billie MacFarland, Freda Tan

Free Admission, Open to Public

Implicit in the very thought of safety is danger. We turn to the familiar reflexively as a refuge from the unknown, we seek comfort as an antidote to pain, and we long for home when we find ourselves in strange places, no matter how fantastical they might be. The quest for safety is an impulse to turn inward, away from the world, away from the unfamiliar. Safety is retreat. To wish for safety is to surrender to fear.

To get home safe is not merely to arrive unharmed at your dwelling-place; it is to return to the embrace of your nest, to resume your place in the web of your life, constructed with such great and loving pains. Even in the act of saying “Get home safe”, there is care. The barely-buried subtext of the statement is: “You matter to me.” At the heart of the wish for safety, one finds love.

How can these two views of safety, one cynical and one dripping with sentiment, be reconciled? Are they even speaking the same language to each other? Is safety, in its essence, about love and care, or about fear and danger?

Enjoy your night and get home safe.

Get Home Safe is composed of the works of Sarah Avolio, Billie MacFarland, and Freda Tan, who each bring their own unique perspectives and techniques to exploring the tensions inherent in the idea of safety.