Positive Space Opens Sydney Smith’s "Desire Permutations" on July 10, Curated by Allison Ward
Centered on contaminated bodies of water in Oklahoma, "Desire Permutations" asks how desire persists when the land has been made toxic. The riverbeds of the artist’s childhood—dammed, diverted, left to dry out—become loci of grief, ecological inheritance, and collective memory. These bodies of water, remade and rebranded into sites of leisure in spite of their toxicity, speak to a longer history of extraction, ecological violence, and capitalist fantasy.
Inflected by a textual history of resistance, the work behaves like sediment—with language that layers, slips, and collapses across screens. "Desire Permutations" refuses clarity, offering instead a poetics of dispersal. Influenced by ecological grief, displaced longing, and the inchoate textures of digital decay, the work offers no stable ground. Only runoff. Only residue.
About the Artist: Sydney Smith, an artist and writer, is originally from Tulsa, OK and currently an MFA candidate at the Glasgow School of Art in Glasgow, Scotland. Also, Sydney “loves long walks on the beach.”
About the Curator: Allison Ward is an artist from Oklahoma whose work encompasses performance, experimental sound, sculpture making, and curation. In addition to being a freelance curator, Allison is the acting Executive Director and co-founder of the non-profit Art House Tulsa, which organizes large scale community art shows and provides opportunities to regional artists.
"Desire Permutations"
by Sydney Smith + curated by Allison Ward
OPENING: 5-8pm, Thursday, July 10, 2025
Through Saturday, July 26
Gallery hours during the exhibit:
TH 6-8pm
FR 5-8pm
SAT 12-5pm
+ BY APPT
More info: linktr.ee/positivespacetulsa
Contact: Nicole Finley, Founder/Director/Curator - Positive Space Tulsa�,
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Positive Space Tulsa is located at 1324 East 3rd Street in the Pearl District. Positive Space Tulsa was founded by local artist Nicole Finley (she/her). An art space dedicated to Womxn artists - the first and only in Oklahoma - Positive Space Tulsa believes: The letter “x” in Womxn recognizes all women, including gender expansive identities. Positive Space Tulsa is for women, nonbinary, genderfluid, genderqueer, and agender artists (excluding those who identify as male/men). Womxn is pronounced the same as woman or women.
Also check out other Arts events in Tulsa, Theatre events in Tulsa, Literary Art events in Tulsa.
