Congruencies | Trans:form(ed) emerges from the understanding that transformation is neither an anomaly nor an exception, but rather a fundamental condition of being. Across ecologies, bodies, and temporalities, life insists on change: a seed becomes grass, grass becomes seed-bearing, seeds burrow in soil, and so it continues. A caterpillar cocoons itself to metamorphose into a liquid state before becoming a butterfly. For humans, the generation of skin involves continuous self-renewal, barrier maintenance, and repair, driven by a series of organic systems working in harmony.

During phases of our lives, we change over time; some of those shifts are in the mind, and some of those changes are in the body. Sometimes a metamorphosis can be seen from the outside, and sometimes it occurs entirely underneath the surface. The way we understand these shifts informs our relationship with the world we live in, the perceived reality we create in our minds, and the tangible reality we enact with our bodies.

Through sculpture, fibers, digital environments, photography, social ritual, and conceptual form, Congruencies | Trans:form(ed) observes the body becoming both template and site: a vessel for holding, fragmentation, and recomposition – crystallizing ephemeral states into material encounters. Here, transformation is not framed as a linear progression toward resolution, but as an ongoing negotiation between interiority and exteriority; between what can be seen and what must be felt. The collective works by artists Jasper Bolen, LB Buchan, b gunn, Tabitha Nikolai, Daren Todd, Celvie Schultz, and Alanna Zheng transmute language into sensation, destabilizing inherited meanings, and queering the structures through which reality is perceived and performed. In doing so, they open space for emergent, imaginary ways of being that are not yet fully rendered but are urgently felt.

Congruencies | Trans:form(ed) is an exploration of these ideas. Where at a macro scale, The Reser itself is being invited to literally transform in nature, to accommodate the needs and interests of the exhibition. While conceptually material and ecological transformation is at the forefront, the show also brings forward artists whose work reflects trans and gender non-conforming (GNC) ways of knowing. Participants navigating a similar identity journey are invited into a reimagined Patricia Reser Center for The Arts, designed with their experiences in mind. While the exhibition is clearly informed by trans and GNC culture, it does not require identity disclosure or prior knowledge to participate — opportunities to learn, grow, and explore, remain open and accessible to the broader Beaverton community and beyond.

All are invited to be part of the enlightening conversation that Congruencies | Trans:form(ed) conjures. The artists convening here were the catalyst encouraging The Reser to truly reshape into a site of visibility without spectacle — offering all who attend an embodied understanding of transformation as a shared human condition.

In partnership with Guest Curator, Master Artist Michael Bernard Stevenson Jr. (They, Them, Any)

INSIGHTS:

6/5 First Friday Artist Reception & Open Mic

6/10 Congruencies | Trans:form(ed) Panel Discussion*

6/20 Emerging Artist Panel Discussion*

6/27 Portrait Session with Alanna Zheng

7/15 Tea Time with Jasper Bolen

*Free with a reserved ticket.