Drafting Universes is a process-based performance that also takes the form of an installation. With repeated gestures that represent creation, explosion, and removal, Schnadt scatters hundreds of tiny metal nuts over a seven-foot square mirror floor grid. Schnadt’s grid implies a field of measurement that when filled with metal “stars” approximates the experience of looking at the night sky. Through her simultaneously clinical, absurd, and evocative gestures, Schnadt considers the diligence, imagination, and hubris of the scientific process as it tries to define the unknown.

Photos: Lara Rivera, John Sisson, Tricia Van Eck