Marian Lyndgaard & Susan Snipes

Belief in the Unseen

Interactive installation: Textiles, PVC, looped audio, UV flashlights, UV ink on paper
9 x 9 x 8 feet
2025

Belief in the Unseen is a multi-sensory installation that gently disrupts and reorients perception. Layers of sound, scent, touch, and light invite visitors to move beyond the dominance of sight, prompting a reconsideration of how we engage with the natural world. The intentionally unsettling atmosphere creates space for deeper presence, where subtle discomfort becomes a threshold for heightened awareness.

The installation softens the boundary between human and nonhuman, encouraging a more intimate and mindful relationship with plant life. By shifting scale and illuminating the quiet ways plants communicate, remember, and adapt, the work challenges human-centered perspectives. Viewers are invited not just to observe but to witness. To listen, feel, and imagine new forms of connection with what often goes unnoticed. Suspended from the logic of linear time, Belief in the Unseen offers a sensory encounter with the hidden intelligences that surround and sustain us.

Artist Statement

Marian Lyndgaard

My work brings together forgotten scraps representing the forgotten prairie seeds. These seeds are the key to the care work the earth will do. I bring together seeds in the form of a prairie as a corollary to how I piece together scraps to form my fabric works. These experiences shape who I am today as I carry my ancestors into the future and pass on this information to my kids through my piecing. My process is a way to listen to the prairie in a way to not objectify the land as merely a material, as I collect and spread seeds to farther spaces of the prairie pockets. The processes of collecting and disbursing, caring for and bringing together smaller groups of plants mirrors the work I do when mending fabrics and reusing and bringing together scraps into a larger form of the quilted fabrics to then be used for care. The quilt cares as a unified fabric form as the prairie cares and heals the land, the humans, and the more than humans.

Susan Snipes

My artistic practice explores the friction between virtual and real-world experiences, where anxiety, longing, and connection exist in dynamic tension across everyday life. My work combines video, sound, and sculpture into media installations that consider how technology shapes our relationships. I work with digital devices (repurposed phones, tablets, and speakers), mirrors and reflective surfaces, and low-tech media (like stethoscopes and projectors). I often incorporate participatory elements, encouraging viewers to engage physically and emotionally with my work. What drives me as an artist is a desire to stay present in an overstimulated, hyperconnected world. I create reflective, immersive experiences that invite viewers to slow down, notice their surroundings, and consider more intentional, embodied ways of connecting.

Artist Bio

Marian Lyndgaard

Marian Lyndgaard is a multidisciplinary artist whose work examines interspecies relationships and the breaking down of boundaries between humans, animals, and the land. Through a combination of visual art and community engagement, she uses locally sourced plant and animal materials to explore ecological connections and represent personal ties to the land. Fabric is central to her practice, symbolizing both the restoration of the prairie and the mending of fractured relationships. In addition to their studio practice, she founded a local mending circle that fosters community connection, resource-sharing, and collective repair. Marian holds an MFA in Visual Arts from the Vermont College of Fine Arts and a BA in Art from the College of St. Benedict focused on Studio Art and Art Education.

Susan Snipes

Susan Snipes is an interdisciplinary artist based in Cleveland, Ohio, whose media installations respond to the anxieties and disconnection of the digital age. Working with video, sound, digital devices, and often incorporating user-contributed content and interactive elements, she creates immersive spaces that invite reflection and dialogue. Her work encourages audiences to explore their own roles within an interconnected reality where virtual and physical boundaries are increasingly blurred. Susan holds an MFA in Visual Art from Vermont College of Fine Arts and a BA in Art History from Case Western Reserve University. Susan has exhibited nationally with highlights including The Listener’s Gallery in San Antonio, Texas, CalArts in Valencia, California, and CAN Triennial at The Sculpture Center in Cleveland, Ohio.