In “Sanctuary of the Aftermath” at Angel’s Gate Cultural Center in San Pedro, curators Jason Jenn and Vojislav Radovanovic give viewers a lush, graceful experience with poignant experiential moments.

Comprising 10 multimedia artists—David Hollen, Ibuki Kuramochi, Jason Jenn, Rosalyn Myles, Vojislav Radovanovic, Allison Ragguette, Kayla Tange, Nica Aquino, Jeff Frost and Anita Getzler—and an audio work by Joseph Carrillo, this is an immersive exhibition connecting water and land, spirit and body. It also speaks to the lack of connection experienced during pandemic times.

Raguette’s large-scale sculptural wall art, Cross Section Ellipse (2021) is a magical membrane that resembles a wall of coral sliced in two. Tange’s interactive Zen garden, The Rise and Fall of Decadence (2021) also evokes the sea—the garden’s sand, and woven sculptural work resemble fishing nets. Aquino’s A 2020 Reflection (2021) offers an homage to a gentle island life, with video, LED candles, flowers and fruit shaping a personal altar of healing and a longing glimpse of nature.

David Hollen, Indra’s Net (2015). Courtesy Angel’s Gate Cultural Center.

Hollen’s Indra’s Net (2015) is a lustrous dreamlike tangle; the reflective glass balls and the fluid nature of the piece also evoke objects washed up from the sea. Partially screened by a bramble of branches from a wildfire, Carrillo’s haunting and mysterious auditory composition Five Sanctuary Songs (2021) rises from a speaker, exuding the rhythm of the sea or the surging of a fire. Bringing us fully to land is the large screen video of Jeff Frost’s Circle of Abstract Ritual (2013). Here, over 300,000 still photos flow from desert to city streets in a hypnotic 12-minute work.

Radovanovic’s Descent of the Holy Spirit, (2021) is a mix of earth and heaven, in which a ladder strung with luminous glass jars leads from a mound of earth exhumed from Angel’s Gate Park. Likewise site-specific is Jenn’s Angel’s Gate Leaf Mandala (2021). Arranged in a circular pattern, the piece transforms dried leaves from the grounds into preserved and precious materials using gold and copper leaf.

Equally lovely but more tethered to earth is Myles’ Pieces of Us (2021), a celebration of harvest and hard work combining baskets and black-eyed peas with woven works that hang like delicate ghostly shrouds, recalling those no longer laboring. Getzler unites land and sea with Evocation 1, 2, and 3 (2021). Dried rose petals preserved in bottles—stored in a printer’s drawer—are also the subject of a video filmed by Radovanovic and Jenn where the artist casts the petals into the sea as the Jewish prayer for the dead is performed on the soundtrack. Kuramochi’s The Memory of Physicality (2021) reminds viewers of the ephemeral quality of life in a motion-filled video work surrounded by rivulets of human hair that recalls both sacrifice and necessary culling.

Merging elements of earth, air, fire and spirit, “Sanctuary of the Aftermath” provides an exhilarating, beautiful and profoundly moving experience.