Swim in Cold Seas, like the titles of some of our previous exhibitions at Ejecta Projects, is based on a scribble jotted down in one of our curatorial notebooks. To be honest, we don't remember the context that prompted this little snippet of advice, but it’s a directive that seems well intended. Cold-water plunges are thought to improve metabolic, mental, and cardiovascular health. And, enduring this discomfort offers the chance to practice presentness, challenge complacency, and simply exercise.

The phrase, for us, also alludes to the actions we take in a changing and uncertain climate (how much longer will the seas be cold in a warming world?) as well as the desire to find solutions to profound and prosaic distresses (how can we simply feel better?). We — middle-aged co-curators/co-parents/spouses – don’t claim to be self-care gurus or to hold sage nuggets of wisdom, but we’ve collected, questioned, and ascribed to a few “life lessons” along our professional and personal paths.

Our desire to recollect teachings, aphorisms, and morals prompted this theme for our open call. We invited visual artists to submit works of art that consider, enact, or offer a critique of “lessons learned” or the advice shared through their studio practice.

The selected works reflect a range of artists’ approaches to prudent sayings, useful guidance, or insightful warnings. From a pool of over 80 artists, we were drawn to submissions that evoke fables, mythologies, and belief systems; works that acknowledge complex sources of advice, including unsolicited advice; and objects that complicate the distinction between support and directives.

Several artists convey personal moments of parenting, while others examine adages of their elders. Through diverse media – including videos, assemblage, collage, a laser-cut clementine peel, and a self-help line that prompts visitors to “call in” to a symbiotic culture of bacteria and yeast, among other innovative practices – many of the artists enact lessons that critique advisor–advisee power dynamics.

After reading the artists’ statements and closely looking at their works, we’ve amassed a self-help help book’s worth of welcome instruction for better living. Our advice to you: trust your gut, follow your own path to creative interpretations, and remember, hard lessons are hard to forget.