(re)con•nect, 2021
 
A handshake is one of humanity’s simplest acts of connection. It is deliberate. It is intimate. It is brief. When was the last time you held someone’s hand? How about the hand of someone you’ve just met? For some of the creators of this work, it had been longer than they could remember. 

“It was a very strange feeling.” 

The COVID-19 pandemic has forced us to sever, alter, and supplement that ancient ritual of connecting. Fear, prejudice, and our tendency towards public aloofness in the Seattle area have made it easy for us to deny and abandon our essential need for touch. 

Here, as we return to campus in person, we showcase the experiences of the UW community. We are (re)connecting through the act of collaborative sculpture. Each piece begins with a simple lump of clay embraced by the joining of two strangers’ hands. Palms push and pull, fingers squish and pinch, documenting within the clay a new memory of a once-forgotten feeling, a renewed human connection.