When I first opened Lidia Yuknavitch’s memoir, “The Chronology of Water,” I could not get myself to stop reading. I felt like I was gulping down each chapter, and wouldn’t feel satiated until I had finished them all. I had never read anything like it; nonlinear, feral, unflinchingly honest, poetic, raw, dark as hell, and fascinating, both in the life it chronicled and in the way Yuknavitch chose to tell it.
When artist Mari Gior and curator Marina Dojchinov come together, the result is not simply an exhibition; it is a declaration. The Afterlife, debuting December 20 at 219 Bowery in SoHo, marks the unveiling of Gior’s new body of work, The Shadow Dancers. Together, the two women are asserting a form of creative leadership that is intimate, intellectually rigorous, and unmistakably powerful.
At its core, The Afterlife is an exhibition about survival rather than spectacle. Gior’s paintings resist overt dramatization, instead offering ethereal figures suspended between presence and disappearance. Rendered in oil and mixed media, often incorporating deconstructed antique book pages the works feel both archival and immediate, as if memory itself has been pressed into the surface of the canvas.
“I didn’t paint grief,” Gior says. “I painted what survives it. These figures are still moving, still devoted, even when everything else has fallen away.”
A former principal ballet dancer, Gior brings the discipline of choreography into her painting practice. The bodies in The Shadow Dancers are not posed; they are felt. Each canvas captures a moment of transition-movement without destination, reflecting Gior’s belief that the afterlife of love is lived quietly, through continuation rather than closure.
That restraint is precisely what drew curator Marina Dojchinov to the work. Known for crafting exhibitions as immersive narratives rather than static displays, Dojchinov frames The Afterlife as a threshold moment in Gior’s career and in the broader cultural conversation around grief, femininity, and power.
“This show isn’t about loss as an ending,” Dojchinov explains. “It’s about what women build afterward. Mari’s work holds space for tenderness without collapsing into fragility, and that’s where its strength lives.”
Dojchinov’s own trajectory mirrors that ethos. A gallerist and art dealer who opened her first gallery at just 25, she has carved out a reputation for championing emotionally intelligent, narrative-driven work, often by women whose practices defy easy categorization. Her collaboration with Gior follows their earlier success with Down the Rabbit Hole, but The Afterlife signals a deeper, more mature alignment between artist and curator.
“Girl power doesn’t have to be loud,” Dojchinov adds. “Sometimes it’s quiet, precise, and devastating in its beauty. When women lead together, we don’t compete; we amplify.”
Visually, the exhibition unfolds like a whispered confession inside the noise of downtown Manhattan. Blurred figures hover across the gallery walls, layered with fragments of antique texts that read as relics, history colliding with the present tense of paint. A standout work, The Return of the White Rabbit, encapsulates the show’s ethos: romance without nostalgia, devotion without sentimentality.
For Gior, now stepping fully into her voice as a fine artist, The Afterlife represents rebirth. For Dojchinov, it is another example of curatorial authorship that privileges emotional truth over market spectacle. Together, they offer a model of what happens when two female powerhouses meet not to dominate, but to collaborate.
In a city saturated with openings, The Afterlife arrives as something rarer: a sacred pause. A reminder that the most radical power in art often lies not in volume, but in intention.
For Mari Gior, The Afterlife is unmistakably a moment of emergence. Long recognized for her physical intelligence as a dancer and her instinctive visual sensibility as a muse, Gior now claims her place fully as an artist with an independent, emotionally precise voice. The Shadow Dancers are allowed to breathe, hover, and command attention on their own terms, signaling not just a debut, but a declaration of authorship.
Event Details:
Artist: Mari Gior
Exhibition: The Afterlife — Debut of The Shadow Dancers Mari Gior
Curated by: Marina Dojchinov Date: Saturday, December 20, 2025
Location: 219 Bowery, Time to Be Happy Gallery, New York City
Format: RSVP-only
Schedule:
• 5:00–6:00 PM VIP & Press Reception (RSVP required)
•
6:00–9:00 PM – Gallery Viewing (RSVP required)
RSVP: LIFEAFTERSVP@gmail.com
Miami Art Week has never been short on spectacle, but during Art Basel 2025, Maison Perrier-Jouët offered something rarer: a moment of quiet attention. On the sands of Faena Beach, where sound systems usually compete with the ocean, the storied Champagne house unveiled Plant Pulses, a multidisciplinary installation by Polish artist and designer Marcin Rusak that invited visitors to slow down, listen closely, and reconsider what nature has been trying to tell us all along.
Unveiled from December 2–7 as part of Faena Art programming, Plant Pulses translated cutting-edge scientific research on plant communication into an immersive artistic experience — one that blurred the boundaries between art, ecology, and technology.
At the heart of Plant Pulses is a collaboration between Rusak and researchers Bartek Chojnacki and Klara Chojnacka of AGH University of Science and Technology in Kraków, whose experiments revealed that plants emit ultrasonic signals when under stress, such as dehydration. These signals subside when the plant returns to a healthy state — a form of communication that has long existed beyond human perception.
Rusak transformed this data into a soundscape and visual language that made the invisible audible and the inaudible emotional. Inside the installation, visitors were guided by multidirectional sound toward a monumental central sculpture: a contemporary herbarium encasing three “hero” plants vital to the Champagne ecosystem — the vine, European birthwort, and white clover — alongside chalk soil and end-of-life Perrier-Jouët vines. Suspended in resin, the sculpture functioned as a time capsule, preserving botanical matter while symbolizing the fragile continuity of ecosystems across generations.
The soundscape unfolded in three movements — dehydration, inter-plant communication, and rehydration — while circular screens evolved visually from stark linear graphics into organic, bubble-like forms, subtly nodding to Champagne itself. Even the seating, 3D-printed and embedded with plants Rusak collected in Épernay, encouraged visitors to pause, observe, and reflect.
The collaboration felt especially resonant given Perrier-Jouët’s botanical lineage. Founded in 1811 by Pierre-Nicolas Perrier and Rose-Adélaïde Jouët — both passionate lovers of art and nature — the House has long been shaped by horticulture and progressive viticulture. Its iconic Japanese white anemone, introduced by Art Nouveau pioneer Émile Gallé, remains a symbol of the brand’s symbiotic relationship with the natural world.
Rusak’s practice mirrors that ethos. Descended from flower growers, his work often incorporates discarded plants, questioning beauty, decay, and human intervention. As Rusak himself noted, visiting Perrier-Jouët’s vineyards revealed a shared philosophy: “the slow, patient process of creating champagne… much like my practice.”
That philosophy extended beyond the beach and onto the table. On December 2, Perrier-Jouët hosted the Banquet of Nature at Faena’s Mammoth Garden — a four-sequence dinner orchestrated by three-Michelin-star Chef Pierre Gagnaire, the House’s longtime ambassador and creative partner.
Designed in collaboration with experimental Dutch duo Steinbeisser, the dinner explored how design, tableware, and sourcing shape our relationship with food and nature. Guests were invited into conversations with Rusak himself, while vintage cuvées from the Belle Epoque Collection anchored the experience in Perrier-Jouët’s Champagne heritage.
The evening also marked the launch of A Banquet of Nature: Cooking Art and Ideas with Pierre Gagnaire, a new addition to the House’s Enchanting Library. Part cookbook, part cultural dialogue, the book gathers voices including philosopher Emanuele Coccia, botanist Marc Jeanson, novelist Maylis de Kerangal, and biologist Emmanuelle Pouydebat, framing cooking as a profound cultural link between species.
The conversation continued at Design Miami, where Rusak and Axelle de Buffévent, Global Culture & Creative Director of Maison Perrier-Jouët, participated in a public panel moderated by curator Glenn Adamson, exploring biodiversity through the lens of design.
This long-term thinking is central to the House’s mission. Since 2021, Perrier-Jouët has been rolling out an experimental regenerative viticulture program, with ambitions to convert 100% of its vineyards by 2030. Research like that behind Plant Pulses could one day inform real-time vineyard resource management — a tangible example of art contributing to environmental practice.
Fittingly, Art Week also marked the announcement of the inaugural Perrier-Jouët Design for Nature Award, created in partnership with Design Miami. The first recipient: Iris van Herpen, the Dutch haute couturier renowned for merging fashion, science, and living systems.
Van Herpen was awarded a carte blanche to create a design-led experience for Design Miami 2026, recognizing a practice that treats nature not as inspiration alone, but as collaborator. Her most recent couture collection, Sympoiesis, drew from oceanic ecosystems, translating ecological fragility into fluid silhouettes and layered, liquid-like forms.
As de Buffévent noted, the award is meant to push sustainability beyond rhetoric — toward joyful, optimistic experimentation. For van Herpen, it offers space to further explore “the ever-shifting relationship between our body and the living forces of nature.”
Walking into the International Ballroom at the Beverly Hilton on December 15, it was immediately clear this was not a typical ballet setting. American Ballet Theatre’s annual Holiday Benefit placed the audience unusually close to the dancers, creating a beautiful and intimate environment. Dancers, artists, longtime supporters, and guests including Sterling K. Brown and Ryan Michelle Bathé filled the room alongside ABT leadership and principal dancers, blurring the line between performance and gathering.
After everyone was seated, the program moved fluidly through excerpts from Les Sylphides, The Winter’s Tale, Grand Pas Classique, Midnight Pas de Deux, and a beloved selection from The Nutcracker. The closeness of the space shifted the experience entirely. Artistic Director Susan Jaffe acknowledged the difference, noting, “This is a very intimate setting, and we have a lot of principal dancers doing small dances for a smaller stage,” adding that she hoped “everyone has a wonderful experience for the holidays.”
Throughout the evening, the reason for the gathering remained front and center. Executive Director Barry Hughson spoke about the urgency of sustaining the arts, referencing remarks from honoree Stewart R. Smith. “The arts are not a construct,” Hughson said. “They are part of our collective humanity. In this moment, our humanity cannot be taken for granted. It must be continued.” He emphasized that the arts “must exist” and “must be protected.”
Smith, who received the Melville Straus Leadership Achievement Award, expanded on that idea in a speech that resonated across the room. Describing the physical response art can provoke, he said, “Maybe your heart races a little bit. Or maybe you feel a tear form in the corner of your eye. I know this happens to me.” He continued, “I think this emotional response emerges because the beauty and the creativity has tapped into something deep within us. It’s a unique spark that is essential. It is the essence of the human spirit.” Acknowledging financial pressures and the pace of an increasingly high-tech world, Smith was resolute. “The arts must survive and they must thrive,” he said. “I cannot imagine a world without such beauty and creativity, and I don’t think you can either.”
The idea that dance belongs to everyone extended beyond the stage. Among the guests was Kailey, a professional dancer on wheels, whose zest for life was apparent. “I danced on my feet all of my life until I became disabled,” she shared, explaining that she was diagnosed with a progressive connective tissue disorder in 2020. In the earliest days of that transition, she recalled dancing alone on the floor of her house, “just trying to hold onto what I had.”
What followed, however, was expansion. “Once I was on wheels, the movement became completely infinite,” she said. While the adjustment was more difficult mentally than physically, she described the physical experience as joyful. “Physically it’s been so much fun. You’re constantly exploring movement and technique in a new way.” She emphasized the importance of community, adding, “We have to tune in and adapt together. I dance more now than I did before I became disabled.”
Kailey explained to The Knockturnal that through social media, she connected with Chelsea Hill, founder of The Rollettes Foundation,and one of the most visible wheelchair dancers working today, who became both a mentor and sister figure. Together, they represented the United States in the opening ceremony of the Paralympics in Paris and continue to perform in Los Angeles and beyond, most recently dancing for Lady Gaga. “We danced for Gaga and it was unreal,” Kailey said. “We’re still riding the wave of it.”
The Knockturnal also got the chance to speak more in depth with Jaffe, who reflected on beginning dance at age seven and having what she described as a prophetic dream around age eight that she would become a star. She moved to New York at eighteen, became a principal dancer in 1980 before retiring in 2000. “Nobody in my family was a dancer,” she said. “I was very strong-minded.” She laughed as she recalled the certainty she felt even as a child, later realizing that the children’s book Angelina Ballerina mirrored her own story. “I was reading it to kids and thought, wait a minute, this sounds familiar” she said. Jaffe also remembered announcing to her mother at age ten that she was going to start drinking coffee and become a dancer with Baryshnikov. “She let me drink coffee,and I danced with Baryshnikov” she added, smiling.
Between the closeness of the performances and the personal stories woven throughout the room, American Ballet Theatre’s return to Los Angeles felt like a reminder of how deeply art lives inside people, and why it continues to matter.
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