Artist Statement:
an excerpt from [Obstructed view of the house…] or, Black Point Reinterpretive Site is an installation and replica of a 19th-century Victorian “period room,” constructed by multidisciplinary artists Torreya Cummings and Sarah Lowe. Period rooms serve as domestic interior spaces that showcase a wealthy family’s opulent, often exotic treasures. Cummings & Lowe have fashioned theatrical backdrops, handcrafted facsimiles, props, furniture, and created a stage to play out the political dramas of natural history, colonialism, and mechanical interventions into the Northern California landscape from the time of Western expansion to the present day. This fabricated scene challenges and questions how art and artifice, photography and commercialism, have functioned as tools of both history-making and historical erasure.
Black Point Reinterpretive Site explores changes in the landscape, in species populations, and in the proliferation of industry and development of the Bay Area, as a wink to the near-distant past and as a potential warning sign for the future. Cummings & Lowe invite us into this figurative hall of mirrors to better understand where we stand today and how quickly the tides can turn for all of us.
This work is an excerpt from [Obstructed view of the house…] or, black point reinterpretive site, a larger project curated by Elena Gross and generously supported by the Creative Works Fund. It was shown in full at the Berkeley Art Center from December 2025 – March 2026. Photograph is by Claudia Escobar.
About the Artists:
Torreya Cummings is a project-based visual artist working with histories, futures, and sites, particularly around unlearning dominant narratives of the American West. To these ends, Cummings uses drag aesthetics, substitutions, hardware store materials, landscape, research, ambivalence, bad illusions, props, sets, dioramas, and the language of museums and interpretive sites. Their work includes photography, sculpture, installation, performance, and video. They were a Bay Area Fellow at the Headlands Center for the Arts, and have exhibited solo projects at institutions including Recology SF, Oakland Museum of California, and group shows at The Contemporary Jewish Museum, Root Division, and Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. They have presented performances with Machine Project, Southern Exposure, Small Press Traffic, and the McEvoy Foundation for the Arts. Cummings received an MFA in sculpture from California College of the Arts. Their studio is located in Oakland, California.
Sarah Lowe’s practice engages indiscriminately with art, design, craft, spectacle, scholarship, and play. They make spaces and objects that provoke a prismatic understanding: shifty, gorgeous, and unsettling. Sarah holds a BFA in Art from Carnegie Mellon and an MFA in Digital Media Art from the CADRE Laboratory at San José State University; their art-making strategies are deeply informed by years of work in theater production, building props and sets for Theatreworks Silicon Valley, Berkeley Repertory Theatre, and the California Shakespeare Theatre. Sarah has shown major projects at the Berkeley Art Center, the 01SJ Biennial, the San Jose Institute of Contemporary Art, and the Legion of Honor and is based in Oakland, California.
About the Art Kiosk:
Since 2019, the Art Kiosk aims to bring thought-provoking installations and public art to Redwood City and the Bay Area through eight, six week-long exhibitions throughout each year. Artists from the Bay Area and around the world have been invited to realize their ambitious, site-specific artworks for our audience to enjoy. The initiative was conceived and is curated by Lance M. Fung. Donated curatorial work and project management for the exhibition series is provided by Fung Collaboratives. The Redwood City Improvement Association (RCIA) is the sole sponsor since the inaugural year. Redwood City acts as the logistical partner and provides the space and utilities. Please drop by for a visit 24/7 at 2208 Broadway, Redwood City, CA for a free viewing. Details may be found at: www.fungcollaboratives.com