Second Hand
Molly Blumberg

October 16 - November 26, 2026

Opening Reception: October 16th, 2026, 6:00 PM – 9:00 PM

In Second Hand, Molly Blumberg presents a body of work that embraces processes of un-functioning and re-functioning. Objects slump, reach, and join one another, sometimes seamlessly and sometimes by force. She collects and transforms detritus, exploring what might grow when things are broken apart and reassembled.  A broken chair droops into a bodily blob, bedsprings reach out with new appendages, organic matter is sealed in resin as it decays inside its shell. This work seeks potential in malfunctions and misfires. Out of the breakdown of an intended function objects become something else.

Blumberg creates a speculative environment filled with new bodies and tools made from slippery signifiers. She transforms objects by small degrees: something human-made becomes organic, plants become a human body, body parts turn into built structures. She presents these assemblages as hypothetical prosthetics with ambiguous function, exploring the blurry spaces where bodies and tools fuse. 

We live in increasingly unstable environments filled with trash, and we’re sick because of it -- but what could come out of this as we cannibalize and recycle these objects? As we design objects for bodies, our bodies adapt back to these objects and we may meld into one another. What might bodies become, and what tools and prosthetics may we end up designing along the way?