Resounding Remnants

The Hunterdon Art Museum (HAM) is pleased to present a solo exhibition of art by Chanika Svetvilas, Resounding Remnants, on view September 21, 2025 - January 11, 2026. Working in various materials, the artist uses drawing, sculpture, and mixed media to create accessible art experiences. Svetvilas also incorporates interactive and tactile components in her exhibition that celebrates disability, mad pride, intersectional identity, and the importance of accessibility, community care, and interdependence. Humor and whimsy are used to draw viewers to reflect on the artist’s visual discourse on the alienating effects of clinical treatment and disparities in healthcare access. Svetvilas explains, “Remnants-what I have salvaged from my lived mental health experience resound and reverberate in my art practice as memories…I have reconfigured the residue of my bipolar experiences into drawings, sculptures, installations, and performative actions. My material choices are enveloped in the psychiatric trauma of hospitalizations such as charcoal as a transformative material that in activated form absorbs chemicals from drug overdose[s] to prescription bottles as a reflection of medical cocktails and side effects, to an archive of medical texts, pamphlets, workbooks, and finally the DSM (Diagnostic Statistical Manual of Psychiatric Disorders).” Resounding Remnants aims to raise awareness and challenge perceptions surrounding mental health, using art as a platform for advocacy, reflection, and community engagement. Braille signage and tactile experience are embedded in the exhibition.