Space 4 Art is proud to continue its dynamic series of cutting-edge exhibitions, public programs, and community-engaged events throughout 2026— an initiative that will at once spotlight and strengthen the city’s vibrant, experimental community.
Join us on Saturday, October 10 from 4–7 p.m. for the opening reception of Actual Size, a group exhibition curated by Lara Bullock, Ph.D., and featuring five artists connected to Space 4 Art.
Bringing together the work of Andrew Alcasid, Diana Benavídez, Nick Lesley, May-ling Martinez, and Aldo Cervantes, Actual Size turns our attention toward the human-scale— the intimate, ordinary, and lived experiences that shape how we understand ourselves and the world around us. This reception is free and open to the public.
In a world increasingly shaped by spectacle, speed, technology, and mediation, Actual Size asks us to look closely instead. Through ceramics, sculpture, photography, interactive installation, and found objects, the five artists return us to the places where life is lived: the body, ordinary objects, familiar rituals, memory, and the built environment.
The exhibition invites us to slow down, pay attention, and consider the power we retain to witness, connect, and act. Actual Size features work by Space 4 Art resident artists Andrew Alcasid, Diana Benavídez, Nick Lesley, and May-ling Martinez, alongside former S4A resident Aldo Cervantes.
Curatorial Statement:
“The spectacle in general, as the concrete inversion of life, is the autonomous movement of the non-living.” - Guy Debord, The Society of the Spectacle
“To the ordinary man. To a common hero, an ubiquitous character, walking in countless thousands on the streets.” - Michel de Certeau, The Practice of Everyday Life
"Actual Size." We take for granted that these two words represent fact, despite the suspension of disbelief that often occurs from their accompanied illustrative representation. Life packaged and mediated. This idea of a "spectacle" that was once revolutionary to the avant-garde of the 1960s, is scarcely remarkable today. An interest remains in a return of the real, but in a sense of sovereignty, embodiment, and care.
Actual Size delves into the ever-so fragile, easy to dismiss, human-scale in order to hold space to meaningfully, slowly, consider the everyday real things that affect our lives and the power we retain as individuals to bear witness and to be moved to action.
This is an important proposition to remind ourselves of amidst external events that are, or perceived as, beyond our control. This is a moment when so many forces political, technological, environmental, and social appear to happen despite us instead of for us. Nick Lesley makes this feeling literal through an interactive installation that reflects one’s actions back to them as a lurching, black-metal spectacle, until they realize the doom on screen is generated by themselves. The artists in this exhibition do not retreat from these realities. Instead, they return us to the magic in spaces where life is lived: in ordinary objects, familiar rituals, the built environment, and the body itself.
Andrew Alcasid's ceramics carry the imprint of the body directly into the material, holding a physical trace of presence. Diana Benavídez’s Rape Whistle piñata takes a familiar ritual object of celebration and turns it into something that holds fear, protection, and defiance at once. Aldo Cervantes works through inherited images and emotion, tracing memory, migration, and the quiet weight of family history and speculative futures. May-ling Martinez's sculptures of found objects function as transformative objects built to hold meaning and orient us toward something larger than ourselves.
There is a quiet boldness in this. It may not result in an overall feeling of hope for mankind, but this exhibition challenges you to be present, to witness, to observe, and to be. This act is one that matters and has the potential to engender a feeling of connection in a time of division. Attention itself, matters. By focusing on the intimate, the local, and the lived, Actual Size invites viewers to consider how individual experience can foster connection, empathy, and a renewed sense of agency. If spectacle encourages us to look everywhere at once, the artists in the exhibition ask us to look closely, instead. Meaning begins at the scale of human experience.
Presented by: Space 4 Art in partnership with Art Produce
Supported by: The Prebys Foundation Arts Ecosystem Grant