August 25 - September 29, 2022    |  Socially Engaged Ceramics is a two-person exhibition of ceramic artwork by Julie Schnell-Madden and Lydia C. Thompson. Schnell-Madden and Thompson’s ceramic artworks are stylistically distinct but united by their intention to present timely, yet historically informed, sociopolitical commentary through the medium of ceramics. The dilapidated house structures in Thompson’s Relic series represent the working-class family home. The broken shards that fill these houses, made from her grandmother’s reclaimed ceramic figurines, symbolize negative memories, family loss, unemployment, shattered dreams, and the change evoked by removing confederate monuments. Schnell-Madden's spiral rosettes⁠—floral abstractions of femininity⁠—reflect her despair and fears concerning the ongoing corrosion of women’s reproductive rights and bodily autonomy. Presented together, both artists’ work explores and visualizes our contemporary confrontations, fears, and triumphs related to systematic racism, inequality, and women’s rights.