WORK by LUIS ARNIAS, AYLEN BEAZELY, JONATHAN BELLI,
SCOTT BIRCH, ALEX BRAUBACH, ERICA BROWNE, JAMES BURKE,
ADAM CONNELLY, CHRISTOPHER CHENEY, LAUREN DAVIES,
ELIZABETH DiGIOVANNI, SANDHYA DIRKS, EMILY DONAT, LUKE DORMAN, CHRIS DOROSZ, KATHRYN DUNLEVIE, ROBYN EINHORN, LORA FINELLI, BEN FOLSTEIN , DUSTIN FOSNOT, JUAN PABLO GARZA, DAN GRAYBER, MAYUMI HAMANAKA, HANNAH HAMMOND-HAGMAN, TARO HATTORI, NANA HAYASHI, AMY HIBBS, HOMERO HIDALGO, BEN HOUSTON,
CHIEI ISHIDA, AVA JANCAR, DAVID KASDORF, KIMBERLEE KOYM,
KRISTINA LEWIS, FELIPE MERIA, MIKE McCONNELL, MEGAN McCREADY, JASON MICHAEL, MARK MULRONEY, REBECCA NOON, CAITLIN PARKER, SHALO PENUELA, JULIA PETHO, FIONA RYAN, MERCEDEZE SINGELTON, KYLE SIMON, SHAWN SMITH, SARAH THIBUALT, MICHAEL TRIGILIO,
and GABRIELLE WOLODARSKI

CURATED by LIBBY WERBEL (2005 Participant in Mission 17’s Curatorial Internship Program)

di-o-ram-a, n. a three-dimensional miniature in which figures or other objects
are arranged in a naturalistic setting in a small container with four sides.

The Diorama Show was a big show of small works by a multitude of artists, brought together to explore the creative possibilities contained in a form familiar to anyone who survived elementary school: the diorama project.

By focusing on the diorama, a medium usually found in Ms. Johnson’s fifth grade class or in the stuffy hallways of natural history museums, this show directed the attention of artists with otherwise distinct practices and degrees of accomplishment to a common project, asking them to filter their creativity into a single and singular—shoe-box-sized format.