Bushwick, New York
Group Exhibition
When Conditions Are Right
TransmitterRuth Jeyaveeran Simonette Quamina Katie Ries Camilla Taylor Transmitter is pleased to present When Conditions Are Right, a group exhibition centered around the idea of a seed bank as a model for artistic resilience and renewal. The exhibition spotlights four artists – Ruth Jeyaveeran, Simonette Quamina, Katie Ries, and Camilla Taylor – whose artmaking approaches hold traces of what it means to navigate change, transform, and imagine otherwise across time. Unlike a time capsule (fixed and sealed for posterity) a seed bank safeguards vitality, preserving it with the intention of eventual reactivation. In this spirit, the artists in When Conditions Are Right present works that harbor knowledge and models of possibility; resources for those who will inherit our present era. Ruth Jeyaveeran draws on her South Asian diasporic experience using felted wool and textiles to explore migration, memory, and revival. Through layered sculptures and installations – where human, animal, and landscape intermingle – she interrogates ideas of belonging, rupture, repair and place. Simonette Quamina merges printmaking, drawing, and collage to create layered monochrome works on paper. Drawing on her Caribbean and diasporic experiences, she condenses memory, history, and small intimate moments into dense, textured narratives that preserve and re-present stories spanning temporal and spatial boundaries. Camilla Taylor’s piece Change was made in response to the experience of losing their house, studio and neighborhood to the Altadena fires in early 2025. This work enlists the viewer to activate the piece and engage with ideas of physical as well as emotional imprinting and transference. Katie Ries’s work What You’ve Got invites visitors to exchange a small object on hand (from their pocket, backpack or otherwise) for a handmade seed ball arranged on a plinth. Containing wildflower seeds, these seed balls encourage participants to consider value, choice, and the future landscape as they decide where to release them. Much like seeds themselves, the artworks on view function less as static records than as vessels for memory, labor, and potential. The works included foreground the artist’s hand, privileging process and materiality over polish, with some pieces asking the viewer to offer their own contribution. They invite attentiveness and participation, embodying an ethic of care and deliberation that mirrors the patient stewardship of a seed bank. Together, the practices of these artists feel at once urgent and anticipatory, extending beyond mere responsiveness to the present. They preserve fragments of lived experience as material portraits of endurance and imagination, waiting, like dormant seeds, for the right conditions to take root.