For the Salon de Normandy by The Community, The Community presented an exhibition entitled “welcome2you” by NYC-based artist Nick Sethi. An iteration of Sethi’s lifelong body of work, “welcome2you” is inspired by and focuses on India, the birthplace of his parents. The four-day exhibition was an ongoing installation process and studio setting, which featured photo archives, impromptu artist talks, and where works will be both displayed and realized during the course of the salon.

Sethi’s work is inspired by India’s ubiquitous hyper-decoration and attention to detail that highlights gestures of adornment, connection, and human touch as spiritual acts. The work is created in a seemingly haphazard yet highly resourceful nature, where the action takes precedence over a quest for perfection, and meaning and use are reexamined continuously. In the words of Sethi, “anything can be anything”.

In-process works found and created objects from Sethi’s vast personal collection, and reference and research are treated as one, collapsing hierarchies and blurring the lines between a presentation, an installation process, and a performance. Found packaging material and quilts are both shown as artworks and used as display materials, while original photographs made by Sethi are taped to the walls to reference the exhibition in which they live.

Paying little attention to the boundaries between process and result, producer and product, Sethi’s only constant is change and kinetic energy, suggesting that nothing is finite, and things are always open for reinterpretation. Energy is never created or destroyed, but only transferred, merged, and mutated, echoing sentiments of reincarnation.

Upon entering the Salon Argenteuil conference room, the space allotted to Sethi, the visitors were encouraged to ask, learn, collaborate, and engage with the work, the space, and the artist himself, thus even further emphasizing the exhibition’s title “welcome2you.”