Terrain Biennial 2025
Terrain Biennial is coming and we are hosting two installations in our courtyard garden
Check out what has landed and stop by to see the sculptures at OPAL.
Terrain Biennial - Oct 1 - November 15, 2025
The historic Oak Park Art League hosts two artist installations, one of solid materials in sculptural form (Bethany Cordero's The Architecture of Becoming) and the other a video projection (Pia Cruzalegui's Romeria). Together these works overlap and occupy the garden courtyard offering a contemplative experience to explore and witness changes in the works as the season progresses and collaborates with the two works, weathering the physical and changing the meaning over time.
Architecture of Becoming
Medium: Ceramic, steel, fiber
This work questions what it means to hold oneself together through layered time—what softens, what endures, and how materials, like memory or identity, are reshaped by the forces that surround them. The salvaged textiles speak to histories of use and care, while the ceramics offer both structural presence and subtle fragility. Together, they form a vertical body that will shift aesthetically through weather, sun, rain, and decay. The textiles will fray and bleach; the clay may stain or crack; The paper will undoubtedly disintegrate, and the steel will rust—all changes welcomed as part of the sculpture’s living evolution.
This outdoor sculpture consists of approximately 25 stacked, flat ceramic panels (6” x 6”) interspersed with salvaged textile squares of about the same size, all pierced and threaded onto a central vertical steel rod. The stacked sequence reaches a height of approximately 62 inches, forming a slender, columnar form. The ceramic panels are high-fired and durable, offering rigid contrast to the softness and wearability of the repurposed fabric. Together, the layering builds a textured vertical presence that gently sways between natural and constructed, permanent and provisional. The materials have been intentionally chosen to respond differently to environmental exposure, allowing the sculpture to evolve visibly over time.
Bethany Cordero is an interdisciplinary artist whose work centers on the transformative potential of materiality. Working primarily with clay, fiber, and metal, her practice explores how these materials undergo shifts and adaptations, reflecting the fluid nature of identity and the passage of time. Themes of resilience, impermanence, and renewal are central to her sculptures, which often incorporate remnants of steel and bronze alongside textiles. By assembling these fragments, Cordero creates forms that hold memory and embody the tension between fragility and strength. Her process-driven approach, whether through welding or weaving, highlights the material's capacity for change, while drawing connections between personal experience and collective narratives.
Romeria
Romeria. (2024) is part of a triptych titled, Palo santo. Garúa. Romería. (trans. Palo santo. Pilgrimage. Mist.) Two bodies of water, seemingly unrelated, converge in the montage of these images. Romería is a pilgrimage—an infinite story of histories passed from one generation to the next, from one part of the globe to another. This work is part of a series that transposes oral narratives—constructed chaotically, like Borges' infinite library, with fragmented and interwoven threads. When I began this series, I revisited unfinished personal stories and returned to Borges, whose literature has captivated my imagination since adolescence.
Pia Cruzalegui
As an independent curator, Pia Cruzalegui (b. Peru) places special focus on contemporary issues related to the environment, women, and LGBTQ+ community. She has organized exhibitions in Chicago, Miami, and abroad, and is the producer of Oral Fixation Art Podcast. Pia received an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (2016) and a BA in Video, Film, and Multimedia from Florida Atlantic
Pia was given a recognition award by the Ministry of Culture and Heritage of Quito, Ecuador, for her work Rojo Rosa Rosado, in 2019, and her video documentation project, “American Tales in the Making” (2020), funded by the National Endowment of the Arts Big Read, was commissioned by and archived at the Freeport Art Museum, in Illinois. Pia Cruzalegui was born in Peru. She lives and works in Chicago where she works as an artist, curator and producer.
We are always open to enhancing our garden courtyard, especially with works of art!
This is where you will find out who is exhibiting sculpture in the courtyard garden and how to be considered for this opportunity.
