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Red Shale Island

On View: July 25—November 2, 2025

This exhibition was co-curated by Milwaukee-based artists and storytellers Lillith Forsythe and Cidney Owen.

Red Shale Island

Lillith Forsythe (she/they) is a papermaker and sculptor residing in Milwaukee, WI. Lillith received her Bachelor of Fine Arts from the Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design in 2024. With an investigative attitude, Lillith utilizes printmaking and encaustic techniques to bring their paper forms to life. Her work often evokes themes of evolution, existentialism, and otheredness. They have exhibited locally, including recent exhibitions at UW–Oshkosh, MIAD, and VAR Gallery. Lillith recently completed the Plum Blossom Initiative's Bridge Work program as a member of their 10th cohort.

Cidney Owen (any) is a Milwaukee, WI, based sculptor and writer. She received her Bachelor of Fine Arts and Writing minor from the Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design in 2025. Cidney uses history and manipulation of time to create imaginative worlds transcendent of time and space. They employ labor-intensive processes, such as ceramics, metalworking, calligraphy, and papermaking, to explore the relationship between the body and labor, as well as its role in the history of art. Cidney’s work often revolves around fantasy, medieval, and traditional roles, as well as their connections to the digital age. They have been published in WYRD Magazine and exhibited locally at Better Together Cafe, Gray Area Hawthorn Contemporary, Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design, and Satélite gallery.

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In the summer of 1975, biologists Frederick F. Boggins and Julia O. Hickman disappeared during a routine exploration off the Mid Coast. Their disappearance remains unsolved. Now, nearly 50 years later, crates containing copious amounts of specimens, artifacts, and field logs have been found washed up on the shore of Lake Michigan. Restored and on public display, the findings of Boggins and Hickman present unsettling possibilities of what lies in the waters of the Midwest.

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We acknowledge that in Milwaukee we live and work on traditional Potawatomi, Ho-Chunk, and Menominee homelands along the southwest shores of Michigami, part of North America’s largest system of freshwater lakes, where the Milwaukee, Menominee, and Kinnickinnic rivers meet and the people of Wisconsin’s sovereign Anishinaabe, Ho-Chunk, Menominee, Oneida, and Mohican nations remain present. 

We further acknowledge the iniquity and suffering colonialism introduced to these lands ​through genocide and slavery, as well as through racist and xenophobic ​beliefs, laws​, and practices that continue to inflict harm upon Black, brown, Indigenous, and immigrant lives. We honor those who have lived—and live now—at these intersections of identity and experience.

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