Tempo Giusto | Diana Lehr, Julie Perini, Lisa Occhipinti, Jennifer Rasmussen, & Sharon Svec

Wordling Video Series by Diana Lehr
2024
Video
Music composed by Wayne Higgins

Curated by Simeen Anjum

Exhibition: April 21st - June 13th, 2025

Opening Reception: April 30th, 2025 from 5:00pm-7:00pm

Show Statement

In an age where time is fragmented and attention is divided, Tempo Giusto invites us to embrace the slow, the thoughtful, and the intentional. The Italian term "tempo giusto" refers to playing music at the "right" or "correct" tempo. In this exhibition, it serves as a metaphor for how we approach time in our own lives—not rushing through moments, but engaging with them fully and meaningfully. This approach involves dedicating time to specific experiences, places, and interactions, and engaging with the materiality and context in which they unfold. It’s about not just spending time, but deeply inhabiting it and responding to the world around us.

This exhibition brings together a group of artists whose work encourages us to give things the time they need. Through their unique practices—spanning video, botanical sculptures, stitching and mending—these artists remind us of the importance of slowing down, allowing processes to unfold at their own pace, and resisting the urge to rush ahead. Their work invites us to reconnect with the act of paying attention, fostering a deeper, more patient engagement with the world and encouraging us to be more present and thoughtful in our interactions with it.

Pictured below: Our opening ceremony, pictures of featured artwork, and some shots of our embroidery workshop hosted on May 21st, 2025.

About the Artists

Diana Lehr is a visual artist based in both Hawaii and Pennsylvania, known for her multidisciplinary work in painting, video installation, and light. Her video pieces challenge perception by manipulating time—slowing it down or speeding it up—to highlight often-overlooked experiences.

In this video series, Worlding, Lehr delves into moments that typically go unnoticed, such as the wind swaying a field of grasses, the transformation of a tide pool into a blanket of undulating foam, or a field of fireflies twinkling at dusk. She creates an opportunity to intentionally focus our attention on particular experiences, places, or interactions, engaging deeply with the materiality and context in which they unfold. Her work emphasizes how time is not simply a passive background, but an active force shaping our perception and experience.

Julie Perini is a filmmaker, daily videomaker, diary keeper, community-based media maker, video artist, writer, artistic descendent of time-bending mentors like Tony Conrad, product of the suburbs of New York City and DIY culture of the 90s. She has spent the last fourteen years creating a video a day, documenting her life through a small handheld camera—originally a Flip camera, now an iPhone. Each video is a 60-second, single-take shot, capturing fleeting moments of daily life. To date, she has accumulated over 80 hours of footage, more than 6,000 individual shots. These videos serve as fragments and notes, offering a unique record of her experiences.

 Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, as people sought ways to process complex emotions and experiences of time, Perini found inspiration in the rise of online communities centered around daily practices—writing, drawing, and photo/video documentation. Her work reflects these trends, using multimedia to create new ways of narrating the self and expressing the passage of time. Through her daily videos, she invites us to reconsider how we capture and share our own stories in an increasingly fragmented world.

Lisa Occhipinti’s materials and methods might be considered delicate and feminine: fabric, clothing, paper, thread; stitching, sewing, knotting, folding. Pliable and ubiquitous yet when combined and assembled, they fortify, becoming resilient and distinct. Drawn to labor-intensive processes that require time and intimate postures, her works are the result of quiet, cumulative acts that imbue greater depth of meaning and are counterpoint to our digital, breakneck culture. She does not impose meaning on the materials; rather the materials invoke meaning as she works with them. It is a sensitivity that is vital to the process, especially working with found and natural matter.

Her work has been included in exhibitions at Craft Contemporary Museum, Los Angeles, the de Saisset Museum, Santa Clara University, Santa Clara CA, The Center for Book Arts, New York,  Art Museum of Sonoma County, Santa Rosa CA, The Lamont Gallery, Phillips Exeter Academy, the San Luis Obispo Museum of Art, San Luis Obispo CA.

Jennifer Rasmussen is a florist whose work is deeply attuned to the slow, intentional rhythms of nature. As a studio florist at Petals + Frond, she works with an array of plants, flowers, and organic materials to create floral arrangements, displays, and bouquets. In this exhibition, she presents a moss wall panel, a piece that highlights her careful, patient approach to her craft. Moss, often overlooked, grows quietly and steadily, thriving in spaces that are easily missed. Its soft, resilient texture is a reflection of the time and attention it requires to nurture and shape. Her work encourages us to take the time to nurture the world in its most subtle and enduring forms.

Sharon Svec is many things, but every iteration is laid with the foundation of an artist. Whether through visits to the Art Institute of Chicago or to her grandfather’s workbench, she was exposed to art regularly at a young age. She framed her life with an education, career and practices centered on creativity, and maintained through cultural respect. Sharon earned an MFA at Southern Illinois University in 2000 with degrees in Visual Communication and Professional Media Practice. She also studied and performed regularly with the Theater Department. Sharon’s subsequent work in printing, publishing and communication has greatly influenced her process. Today Sharon works as a curator, arts coordinator, and technical illustrator. She has been performing and exhibiting her artworks publicly since about 2010.