LOS ANGELES – Roy and Edna Disney CalArts Theater (REDCAT), CalArts’ center for contemporary arts in downtown Los Angeles, presents two solo exhibitions by LA-based artists Hande Sever and Abigail Raphael Collins. Both artists examine the role of visual media in shaping our memories and imagining of global conflict. Their work stands in conversation with each other, speaking to the acts of imperialism and militarization that expand into everyday culture. Hande Sever (Art MFA ‘18) explores cultural and political archives by excavating texts and images that shape historical narratives. Abigail Raphael Collins uses video installation and experimental nonfiction to listen to what is considered unspeakable. Both exhibitions open at REDCAT on May 22 and will remain on view through August 10. Hande Sever: Take off your eyes Hande Sever (Art MFA ‘18) explores cultural and political archives by excavating texts and images that shape historical narratives. Often drawing from her own family’s history of persecution, her work examines the intersection of personal and collective memory, particularly in the context of military violence, surveillance, and censorship. Take off your eyes presents two bodies of work rooted in Southern California collections. To Thread Air (2023) is based on research Sever conducted in the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library & Museum, and examines the relationship between the former actor and US President and Kenan Evren, former Turkish President and right-wing leader of the 1980 Turkish coup d’etat. Stemming from an album held in the Ottoman Empire photography collection of the Getty Research Institute, In Search of ‘My Beloved Pauline’ (2025) follows the path of a German soldier who documented sites of colonization throughout and beyond the Ottoman Empire from 1917–1918. Abigail Raphael Collins: BLACKOUT Abigail Raphael Collins uses video installation and experimental nonfiction to listen to what is considered unspeakable. Her work begins from a queer, feminist perspective, exploring what is passed on through generations, outside of language: the gaps, silences, and stutters in intimate and historical dialogue. The culmination of seven years of researching, filming, and editing, BLACKOUT is an experimental documentary that unravels relationships between the film and television industry and the US military. Beginning with the artist’s father, a method actor with PTSD frequently cast in military roles, BLACKOUT threads together interviews of individuals working at the mediatized military junction: a combat videographer, a role player for military trainings, a script supervisor in the Army, and a writer for a TV show partially funded by the US military. Both exhibitions are co-curated by Daniela Lieja Quintanar, Chief Curator and Deputy Director, Programs and Talia Heiman, Assistant Curator.