What Are Dreams If Not Hostage Situations?

May 8, 2026 – June 26, 2026

Gadsden Museum of Art

In Tibetan Buddhism, hope and fear are inextricably linked in a single word, re-dok. This is the ground of suffering, but also the condition of dreams. We aspire and we fear in a forever recurring cycle. Yet the dream itself operates as more than a private movie theater. It is also a cycle of domination. Each night we are beholden to go back. Eventually we spend a third of our life there. We are hostages.

What Are Dreams If Not Hostage Situations? is about a special kind of figure who is native to the dream. He is of obscure intent. He is able to appear to be one thing but also stand for some other thing. The figure may appear to be a person or a table or a shoe or a mirror or your mother but actually stand for a starfish or a tomato or your mortality. This is his mask as he goes about his work: a form of processing that is parallel to our consciousness.

This show is curated by Mat Keel and Liz Lessner as Yes We Cannibal, and features the work of Lily LaGrange, Louisa Minkin & Francis Summers [LMFS], Jon Peterson, Jak Ritger, Panacea Theriac, and Tunde Wey, originated by Alabama Contemporary for Gadsden Museum of Art in 2026.