Sidewise

august 24–September 25, 2026
Maggie K. Barrett
2026 Borgeson Artist in Residence

In the eight weeks of the Borgeson residency, Barrett handcrafted each component of the show — from the paper for the prints, to the felted sheep’s wool that wraps the tunnel, and the welded metal of its structure. She is curious about the weight of materials and the labor it takes to fabricate a mundane object like a sports net.

Through her work, she learns about the resources (time, money, skill, material) it takes to bring a thing into the world. It doesn’t matter that she hasn’t made something out of felt before; she can learn how to make it through weeks or months of research and practice.

Sidewise explores ideas of permeability and access. While the title Net Fence implies sports, the piece functions as a barrier to movement. The towel in Screenshot-Bianca-Andreescu-v-Serena-Williams-US-Open-Final-2019 grants the player physical and psychological interiority, but blocks the viewer out. Agility Tunnel — inspired by the cross-species communication of the sheep, shepherd and sheep dog — allows for passage, transformation and/or a space to rest. In this installation, Barrett implicates her own body and the viewer’s, calling attention to movement and offering an invitation to look up, crawl through, walk slowly and touch. 

The Borgeson Artist in Residence program was inaugurated in 2016 through the generosity and enthusiasm of Hope alumni Clarke ’72 and Nancy Rayner ’72 Borgeson. 

ARTIST BIO

Maggie K. Barrett (b. Buffalo, NY) is an artist based in Brooklyn, NY. Her work is grounded in an extended exploration of grief as an embodied experience — something that altered her senses and required a slower rate of moving through the world. Her practice spans print-, paper- and book-making, writing, installation and photography. She works in labor-intesive ways that point back to the body at work. Taking from both sport and literary culture, she responds to found objects, like a thank you card from her dad; passages in books like Virginia Woolf’s On Being Ill; or stills from YouTube videos, like a tennis player refocusing between games. Using humore, repetition and scale, themes in her work circle around endurance, touch and presence. Her work has been exhibited in the US and the UK. She completed an MFA at the Slade School of Art, London in 2022, and was a participant at Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in 2025. The Borgeson Artist in Residence is her first residency.