Required Reading

Required Reading: A Visual Poetry Exhibition on Language & Silence March 30 – June 9, 2024 📍 Workhouse Arts Center, McGuireWoods Gallery Free & open to the public Learn more here “Visual poetry, with its various silences, fills the room.” What happens when words are rearranged, erased, or transformed into something new? Required Reading is an exhibition that challenges the limits of language, bringing together eight artists who break traditional communication structures and invite the viewer into an unexpected dialogue. Letterpress, typewriters, bookbinding, and embroidery merge with digital-era symbols and laser-cut machinery to create narratives that elevate text beyond the written word. In a world oversaturated with information, this exhibition offers a moment of pause—a space where text and imagery live together in a fragile, beautiful, and sometimes indecipherable world. The works explore themes of language barriers, the redaction of truth, the weight of memory, and our deep connection to the land. Some texts are obscured, some stories revealed through what is missing. Each piece challenges us to rethink how we read, interpret, and understand both the words in front of us and those left unsaid. Experience the power of language beyond the page. Plan your visit & explore the exhibition https://www.workhousearts.org/required-reading-exhibit