I spend a lot of time crouched down close to cracks and light. In parking lots, I cast cracks with paper pulp; I trace and photograph shifting shapes of sunlight and shadow in stairwells, hallways, alleyways. Sometimes the work stays onsite, other times I translate the interventions into drawings, sculptures and books that can unfold and cast shadows in new contexts. Considered with attention and care, these overlooked transitional spaces and peripheral patterns become thresholds of poetic possibility.
I have an intimate relationship with fracture and healing, as I have a rare brittle bone condition, Osteogenesis Imperfecta. My work reflects an embodied affinity with Kintsugi, the Japanese art of mending broken ceramics with gold. Filling and casting cracks with paper pulp is a gesture of mending, a question of transience and presence, care and possibility. I use handmade paper because it is fragile yet surprisingly resilient, like the human body.
When casting cracks, I leave the pulp to dry in the asphalt, sometimes for a few days. It becomes part of the environment. Cars drive over it, the pressure condensing and strengthening the form. Both delicate and resilient, the paper keeps the shape of the cracks when removed, acting as a relic of a specific fracture (with dirt and pine needles clinging to the fiber).
Whether catching sunlight or transforming cracks, my work gives a physicality to what is usually transient and intangible, visualizing the gap between passing and dwelling, broken and whole—between a reflection of what is and a proposal of what could be.
Emily Fussner is a multidisciplinary artist whose work has been exhibited in solo exhibitions at Museum of Contemporary Art Arlington (Arlington, VA, 2021) and IA&A at Hillyer (Washington, DC, 2019) and group shows at the Brentwoord Arts Exchange (Brentwood, MD, 2021), Target Gallery (Alexandria, VA, 2021) and the Tephra Institute of Contemporary Art (Reston, VA, 2020) among others. She has been commissioned to create site-specific installations for Georgetown Glow (2021) and The Foggy Bottom Outdoor Sculpture Biennial (2018). Fussner holds an MFA in Visual Arts from George Mason University (2019) and a BS in Printmaking from Indiana Wesleyan University (2013). She participated in a summer residency at GlogauAIR through American University’s MFA Studio Berlin in 2019 and was awarded a 2018-2019 Virginia Museum of Fine Arts Graduate Fellowship. Emily grew up in Indonesia, Indiana, and New Zealand, and now lives in the Washington, DC area. She is currently a resident artist at Museum of Contemporary Art Arlington, and is the Events Manager & Resident Designer for Washington Project for the Arts.