Fraudulent Applications of Projection

The Chazan Gallery at Wheeler, Providence, Winter 2025

Fraudulent Applications of Projection is a duo exhibition / site intervention at the Chazan Gallery at Wheeler, bringing together the work of artists Alexander Wenstrup and Nathan Borradaile Wright.

In mapping, projection refers to a broad set of transformations by which the curved surface of the Earth is represented in two-dimensional space. In alchemy, the same term denotes both the process and the physical reagent by which lesser metals could be transmuted into higher forms. Both usages derive from a spatial evocation: the act of projecting, of throwing forward; a dynamic action crossing between parallel but intersecting spaces. Mapping projection, however, invokes a rigid geometric framework (sometimes figurative, sometimes literal) that restrains the dynamic character of the object it represents. These practices order space, establishing mathematical principles and social procedures by which our protean world can be made static and fungible, in the process excising the errant, uncertain, and unknown. But, despite these efforts, everyday life is still unpredictable; meaning remains fugitive, and the substance of our world continues in its endless process of transformation, throwing us continually forward into the new. Fraudulent Applications of Projection features works that interrogate the range of visual tools and material practices that situate an individual in space, anchor them to a landscape, and orient them within the material world. The exhibition explores the tension between static, rectilinear representations of space (maps, photographs, satellite images) and the messier, disordered continuum of experience that characterizes daily life (fragments, impressions, material traces). Spanning disparate scales and incorporating multiple media—part panorama, part kaleidoscope—Fraudulent Applications of Projection invites viewers into a playground of cartographic abstractions, through which a vibrant, if sometimes fractious and fictitious, world can be glimpsed.