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Heat Lightning

AUGUST 23–SEPTEMBER 26, 2024
BORGESON ARTIST IN RESIDENCE EXHIBITION

Heat Lightning is an exhibition of photographic works created by Christina Kerns during the 2024 Borgeson Artist in Residence program at Hope College. The exhibition centers around photographs created in and around Michigan as well as ephemera inspired objects with new and previously created images.

As opposed to traditional lightning strikes, heat lightning is a diluted glowing flash in the clouds, typically seen at a distance and without accompanying thunder. The name is a misnomer, as the sound and visual flash are diffused through distance and are unrelated to heat. This exhibition includes photographic investigations developed through the summer connected to the idea of translation and the limitations of simulation. Heat Lightning, like photography, implies a reality that is based in truth, but inherently includes biases and translations shifts. In an effort to understand the world around us, how do we create new realities which reference something real?

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 Biography

Christina Kerns is a photographer working in alternative printed materials, gifs, net art, and artist books. She received her BFA in photography with a minor in art history from Pratt Institute and an MFA in interdisciplinary art from the University of Pennsylvania, PennDesign. Her work incorporates ideas of individuality, the influence of the internet on the physical world, and archiving individual and cultural history. She is an associate professor at Lincoln University of Pennsylvania and lives and works in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She has exhibited nationally and internationally.

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