Soft Night, Watching | Jen Clay Interactive Gallery Exhibit
Date: Thu, Aug 7, 2025
Time: 1:00 PM - 5:00 PM
Venue: Ackland Art Museum, Chapel Hill
Price: Free
Category: Arts
This fall, the Ackland Art Museum at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill invites visitors into a vivid, immersive world of texture, imagination and quilted monsters. “Soft Night, Watching,” a new interactive fabric installation by artist Jen Clay, is now on view and offers a bold, multisensory exploration of fear, neurodivergence and the strange comfort of the unknown. Clay, known for her innovative combination of soft sculpture, animation and performance, has transformed the Ackland’s ART& Gallery into a dreamlike landscape filled with hand-sewn figures made from cotton, satin, velvet and other tactile materials. What initially seems to be an abstract forest gradually unfolds into something uncanny, featuring forms inspired by early 20th-century literature and the eerie realms of H.P. Lovecraft. Enhancing the viewer's journey of discovery, hidden messages within the artwork become visible only through interaction. Unlike a typical museum installation, visitors can explore "Soft Night, Watching” by touching it. Drawing from psychological theory and personal experiences with anxiety and dissociation, Clay encourages viewers to engage with fear not as something to escape, but as something to sit with — to observe and be observed. “Soft Night, Watching” is an example of cutting-edge contemporary art that challenges perception and invites inclusive engagement. Please check the Exhibition page for even more information on Jen Clay & “Soft Night, Watching”