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Alison Pebworth

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Alison Pebworth
NationalityAmerican
Education
Known for
  • Installation art
  • social practice
  • mapping
  • participatory projects
Notable work
  • Beautiful Possibility
  • Cultural Apothecary
  • Reconnecting to Home
  • Unofficial Department of Handshakes
AwardsLouis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Award (2015); MacDowell Fellow (2021)
Websitealisonpebworth.com

Alison Pebworth is an American artist whose work incorporates painting, installation, itinerant exhibition formats, and public participation in an ongoing examination American cultural narratives. Her projects — often produced through long-duration travel, site-responsive construction, and conversational or survey-based participation — have been presented at institutions including MASS MoCA, Southern Exposure, The New Children’s Museum in San Diego, and SPACES in Cleveland. Pebworth has also exhibited across a network of artist-run and non-profit spaces in Canada and the United States through the multi-year touring project Beautiful Possibility. In 2024, after many years of itinerant touring, Pebworth relocated to the Berkshires and began developing new work in North Adams, marking a shift from mobile presentation toward site-based construction.[1] Her 2025–26 project Cultural Apothecary at MASS MoCA extended these methods into a large-scale installation with structured public programming and broadcast coverage.

Early life and education

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Pebworth grew up in Texas and later settled in San Francisco. She studied at the University of Texas (BFA) and the University of Kansas (MFA).[2] She is the daughter of sculptor Charles Pebworth.[3]

Practice

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Pebworth’s projects blend painting, installation, and public participation, incorporating elements such as surveys, storefront activations, tea service, and site-responsive programming to prompt reflection on cultural narratives. Museum texts and press describe her work as engaging themes of anxiety, social fragmentation, and collective repair through conversation and ritualized exchange.[4][5]

After early work in painting, Pebworth shifted toward itinerant and site-responsive formats, developing roadside-style installations and incorporating public interactions across multiple U.S. regions as part of long-distance research and exhibition tours. These approaches were documented in presentations at non-profit art spaces and museums across the United States and Canada during the multi-year project Beautiful Possibility (2010–13).[6][7][8]

Her practice thereafter expanded into large-scale, participatory installation through commissions such as the four-story tower Reconnecting to Home at The New Children’s Museum in San Diego, which incorporated archival collection and site-based research into a climbable structure designed for public use.[9][10]

Pebworth’s work with material salvage and reuse was further developed during her residency at Recology San Francisco’s Artist in Residence Program and in the subsequent reconfiguration of that work at the San Francisco Arts Commission Main Gallery, where found materials and constructed environments were used to examine historical memory and civic infrastructure.[11]

Beginning in 2012, Pebworth initiated elements of what later became Cultural Apothecary, a project examining “Americanitis” through participatory formats such as surveys, medicine-show display logics, and conversational exchange. This body of work was presented at MASS MoCA in 2025–26 with public programming components and institutional framing around social precarity and collective repair.[12][4][5]

Major projects

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Cultural Apothecary (2012–ongoing; MASS MoCA 2025–26)

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A participatory installation centered on a countertop apothecary, tea service, surveys, and a series of public activations, presented at MASS MoCA’s Building 6 from February 2025 through summer 2026. The project reimagines Pebworth’s earlier investigations into “Americanitis”[13] — a 19th-century term for nervous exhaustion manifesting in myriad forms, from excessive exhaustion to premature baldness, channeling the anxiety and ennui rampant in American culture following industrialization and urbanization[4]— as a large-scale environment focused on collective care, social precarity, and civic repair. Developed over more than a decade of itinerant research, Cultural Apothecary extends Pebworth’s long-standing interest in ritualized exchange and the aesthetics of public inquiry.[12][4][5]

Beautiful Possibility (2010–13)

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A traveling research exhibition launched by Southern Exposure, accompanied by a published catalog with an essay by Rebecca Solnit; supported by the Center for Cultural Innovation; toured to numerous non-profit spaces and museums in the U.S. and Canada (e.g., SPACES Cleveland; SPACE Gallery, Portland; MOCA Detroit; Intermedia Arts Minneapolis).[6][7][8]

Writing on the Cleveland presentation, journalist Laura E. Varcho described Beautiful Possibility as a contemporary re-imagining of the 19th-century traveling show, combining hand-painted posters, participatory surveys, and itinerant performance “to re-tell the American story.” The exhibition amplified Pebworth’s interest in “Americanitis” as both metaphor and organizing principle, inviting audiences to contribute their own diagnoses of cultural fatigue through surveys and locally-made “elixirs.”[14]

The tour’s participatory design, its integration of storytelling, travelogue, and material culture, and Pebworth’s emphasis on dialogue and hospitality were later cited by critics as defining features of her socially-engaged practice.

Reconnecting to Home (2015; The New Children’s Museum, San Diego)

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A four-story climbable tower commissioned for the exhibition Eureka!; museum materials describe open-ended play and exploration tied to California histories.[9][10]

Unofficial Department of Handshakes (2018; San Francisco Arts Commission)

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A City Hall foyer intervention (with collaborators) exploring gesture, protocol, and sociality of handshakes; documented by San Francisco Arts Commission programming and local media coverage.[15][16]

Recology Artist in Residence (2016) / Innards and Upwards & A San Francisco Wunderkammer (2016–18)

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Residency at Recology’s Artist in Residence Program, with subsequent reconfiguration at SFAC’s Main Gallery.[11]

Awe Lab / StoreFrontLab (2013)

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A program/exhibition at StoreFrontLab featuring Pebworth and others, exploring “awe” as an artistic and community tool.[17]

Third Street Phantom Coast (mapping & sound)

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Map project (Yerba Buena Center for the Arts’ Bay Area Now 5, 2008) with a related sound component by James Goode; later connected to Solnit’s atlas work.[18]

Selected exhibitions

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  • 2025–26: Cultural Apothecary, MASS MoCA (North Adams, MA).[12]
  • 2016–18: Innards and Upwards: A San Francisco Wunderkammer, SFAC Main Gallery (reconfigured).[11]
  • 2015: Reconnecting to Home, The New Children’s Museum (San Diego, CA).[9][10]
  • 2012: Beautiful Possibility Tour, SPACES (Cleveland, OH); SPACE Gallery (Portland, ME); additional venues.[7][8]

Honors and residencies

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  • Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Award (2015).[2]
  • MacDowell Fellow (2021).[19]
  • Center for Cultural Innovation support for Beautiful Possibility.[6]

Publications and collaborations

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  • Contributor (maps/graphics) to Rebecca Solnit et al.’s atlas series; the UC Press box set Infinite Cities: A Trilogy of Atlases won the 2020 Alice Award.[20]
  • Beautiful Possibility catalog (Southern Exposure) with essay by Rebecca Solnit (pdf excerpt).[6]

Reception

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Coverage of Pebworth’s long-running itinerant project Beautiful Possibility described the work as a form of traveling public inquiry into U.S. mythologies, noting its appearance at artist-run and non-profit spaces across multiple cities.[6] In another context, reporting from the Portland Press Herald framed the work’s touring model as an alternative to conventional exhibition infrastructures.[8] Pebworth’s large-scale installation Reconnecting to Home at The New Children’s Museum in San Diego was covered in institutional materials and regional press in relation to its participatory and intergenerational design.[9] Her 2025–26 project Cultural Apothecary at MASS MoCA generated additional press coverage through broadcast media, with WAMC summarizing the installation as a public-facing response to social fragmentation and civic exhaustion.[5] Critical framing of Pebworth’s practice has also appeared in catalog essays, including the Southern Exposure publication for Beautiful Possibility, which situated the work within longer histories of American itinerant forms and civic spectacle.[6] In a 2024 feature, Artscope Magazine framed this North Adams phase as a continuation of her earlier itinerant methods adapted to a fixed environment.[1]

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References

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  1. ^ a b Kaye, Marjorie (2024-01-04). "A Much Less Tortuous Path: Pebworth Installs New Environments in North Adams". Artscope Magazine. Retrieved 2025-10-29.
  2. ^ a b "Alison Pebworth". The Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation. Retrieved 2025-10-29.
  3. ^ ArchivesStaff. "Charles A. Pebworth Collection – Finding Aid". Thomason Special Collections, Sam Houston State University. Retrieved 2025-10-29.
  4. ^ a b c d "Alison Pebworth: Cultural Apothecary brings an antidote to loneliness and isolation to MASS MoCA". MASS MoCA. Retrieved 2025-10-29.
  5. ^ a b c d "Alison Pebworth's "Cultural Apothecary" at MASS MoCA". WAMC Northeast Public Radio. 2025-03-31. Retrieved 2025-10-29.
  6. ^ a b c d e f "Beautiful Possibility (catalog, 16-page PDF excerpt)". Southern Exposure. Retrieved 2025-10-29.
  7. ^ a b c "Beautiful Possibility Tour". SPACES. 2012-06-01. Retrieved 2025-10-29.
  8. ^ a b c d Kany, Daniel (2012-09-16). "Art Review: 'Beautiful Possibility' show entertains, provokes thought". Portland Press Herald. Retrieved 2025-10-29.
  9. ^ a b c d "The New Children's Museum Announces Eureka! (press release)" (PDF). The New Children’s Museum. 2015-06-08. Retrieved 2025-10-29.
  10. ^ a b c "Reconnecting to Home". The New Children’s Museum. Retrieved 2025-10-29.
  11. ^ a b c "Artist Talk with Alison Pebworth". San Francisco Arts Commission. Retrieved 2025-10-29.
  12. ^ a b c "Alison Pebworth: Cultural Apothecary". MASS MoCA. Retrieved 2025-10-29.
  13. ^ "ONE STEP BACK; Where Are the Elixirs of Yesteryear When We Hurt? (Published 1998)". 1998-01-26. Retrieved 2025-10-30.
  14. ^ "Got Americanitis? | CoolCleveland". coolcleveland.com. Retrieved 2025-10-30.
  15. ^ "The Unofficial Department of Handshakes". San Francisco Arts Commission. Retrieved 2025-10-29.
  16. ^ "San Francisco Artists Get a Grip on City Hall Handshakes". NBC Bay Area. 2018-01-23. Retrieved 2025-10-29.
  17. ^ "Awe Lab — StoreFrontLab". StoreFrontLab. Retrieved 2025-10-29.
  18. ^ "Third Street Phantom Coast (part 3)". SoundCloud. 2018-01-02. Retrieved 2025-10-29.
  19. ^ "Alison Pebworth". MacDowell. Retrieved 2025-10-29.
  20. ^ "Infinite Cities: A Trilogy of Atlases is the Winner of 2020 Alice Award". University of California Press Blog. 2020-11-09. Retrieved 2025-10-29.
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