In The way things could be… six VCUarts Art Foundation Faculty artists brought spiritual belief, grief, memory, fictional worlds, and digital cultural phenomena into material form.
The way things could be… was an exhibition of faculty artwork curated by Sarah Irvin, on view from January 23rd – February 21st, 2026.
The way things could be… is an exhibition of work selected from VCUarts Art Foundation Faculty that explores individual thresholds for believing something to be “real” and how something typically understood to be intangible could be perceived to be concrete. Through painting, photography, and sculpture the artists bring spiritual belief, grief, memory, fictional worlds, and digital cultural phenomena into material form. They provide a way to consider if ideas, beliefs, and emotions are interacting with physical matter and if they are always physically manifested in some way in order to exist. Each body of work highlights the artist’s negotiation with what proof or information they need in order to establish what they know to be true or when they choose to intentionally suspend their disbelief.
Curated by Sarah Irvin