Kate Stewart’s senior exhibition Memorabilia examines what makes us treasure a memory. She comes at the question through a variety of media that extend beyond the gallery’s walls and the exhibition’s run. 

“I am one of those people who really values people and events,” said Stewart. “As an artist, I'm really proud of all the work I've done, but the things that I'm most proud of are connections or moments.” Stewart's exhibition elevates and curates these intangibles, placing some of them on literal pedestals.

The assemblage of memories on display includes Stewart’s own along with those of friends. “I have about six pieces, seven including my film, that all kind of get around the question of what is valued, what do we keep, what things are considered important in life.”

 “I have about six pieces, seven including my film, that all kind of get around the question of what is valued, what do we keep, what things are considered important in life.” —Kate Stewart

Framing the exhibition, four white dresses covered in personalized graffiti span the entry to Lucas Gallery, the memorabilia of the annual Princeton lawn parties that sum of up each of the four years in Stewart’s undergraduate experience. For Stewart, the dresses capture the infrastructure of each year’s personal interactions; “People are collectively coming together who you've met, who you've talked to, and who's has impact on you and this is a visual representation of that,” she explained.

On pedestals, objects of special importance donated by Stewart’s friends are paired with her brief handwritten explanations. “Each one has significance to the person that donated it,” she said. “And each little didactic is a piece of poetry that kind of gets at that idea of what about each object is important.” Objects include a dried rose, an oyster shell, and Stewart’s own ballet slippers, each with a description that explains why it belongs on a pedestal.

Digital elements of Stewart’s exhibition include a video of Stewart standing for an hour in Firestone Plaza inviting passersby to draw on the white dress she is wearing, sped up to play in the span of one minute with the dress, the remnant, exhibited alongside. 

In another corner, a stack of monitors displays faces engaged with everyday items like lip gloss, lighters, or sunglasses.  “It's a combination of photography and stop emotion animation that, once again, looks at this idea of girlhood and material objects that you kind of keep or remember—that bring back an idea of reminiscence,” said Stewart.  

But the centerpiece is the film Stewart created for the exhibition, also titled Memorabilia. Set in the year 3050, the film traces a person who has returned to an abandoned earth on a mission to make it inhabitable in the future, but who gets drawn into the memories of someone else's past, encapsulated in a camcorder. The film airs each evening of the exhibition's three-day run. 

In a similar vein, Stewart dedicated a corner of the gallery to spontaneously creating a time capsule of the special moments of her exhibition’s visitors; willing participants can print an image from their cell phones and deposit it into a compostable vessel that Stewart will bury beside the Lewis Center for the Arts at 185 Nassau Street. “People are invited to airdrop their photos and print them right here and then they will add to this collective memory of what this year has been like,” Stewart explained.  

“It's personal to me because I've spent like all my time in this building but also I think there is something new and interesting about what is left behind and what would people find in the future had they come down and see like what humans are like and like what would impact them, again what's important and what is valued by society and that same thing being such situation occurs in the film and so yeah all that kind of works together to get at that question of what is valuable and what is important.”

“I think all my work this year has a weird entanglement with joy, recalling, and…I think each one of them tackles a different perspective of that same question of what’s valued and why do we care and why do we love things and what brings us happiness.” —Kate Stewart

Beyond visual art, Stewart’s practice draws on her three minors in theatre, musical theatre, and dance to explore her theme. Her play Unshattered Matter, in which she also acts, involves movement, dance, voice recordings, and the same notes exhibited in Memorabilia. 

“I think all my work this year has a weird entanglement with joy, recalling, and…I think each one of them tackles a different perspective of that same question of what's valued and why do we care and why do we love things and what brings us happiness.”

“For me, art, visual and performance, really is interconnected,” she continued. “I think that there's something beautiful about integrating all aspects of like, audio, visual, physical and telling a story or showing ideas or asking questions.” 

Stewart intends to keep exploring all facets of her practice in the future.  In the summer, she is choreographing Alice in Wonderland in Bosnia, followed immediately by a performance in the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. 

In the longer term, Stewart feels equipped and inspired by her Princeton education to dedicate herself to her artistic endeavors. “I'm actually getting really interested in producing work,” she said. “I'm excited to go forward and produce films and make my own movies where I can act in them and make my own art where I can work with my friends and create really interesting photos and animations and I can go forward in all these different realms that I've gotten to explore at Princeton.”

“As an artist, the hardest thing is waiting around for somebody to give you a chance,” said Stewart. “And I think the best thing that I've learned through practice of art is I don’t have to wait for somebody to give me a chance, I can just do it.”

“As an artist, the hardest thing is waiting around for somebody to give you a chance. And I think the best thing that I've learned through practice of art is I don’t have to wait for somebody to give me a chance, I can just do it.”  —Kate Stewart