ROUND 24 | Ritualware
By Ariana Kimball
8/2/2025 – 9/6/2025
Opening Reception – Saturday, August 2nd, 6-9 pm
Artist Remarks – Saturday, August 2nd, 7 pm
Closing Reception – Saturday, September 6th,7-9pm
Panel Discussion – Saturday, September 6th, 6 pm
Ariana Kimball is an Austin-based artist whose work explores care, routine, and the quiet labor of keeping things alive, both physically and emotionally. Kimball’s work explores the quiet persistence of rituals through materials and sculptural forms. She traces how small, repeated gestures such as cleaning, resetting, and tending, become anchors of meaning and modes of presence.
Round 24: Ritualware brings together both elemental and domestic objects inside the cage. Plants growing in hydroponic cells, chia-covered pillows, and beaded strings are placed along the walls and inside the cage. In the center sits a tree trunk with a mandala motif carved into its diagonal cross-section. The mandala and the 7 pointed star become a visual compass, orienting the cage in relation to the movement of the sun and moon. These materials evoke the cyclical behavior of both humans and of the universe.
The installation draws from Kimball’s concept of “Re- and Pre-Setting,” a practice of returning to care as a continuous act. Her work frames care not as something to complete, but as a state to return to, again and again.
By using natural materials and embracing a domestic aesthetic, Kimball challenges the logic of excess. Her restrained, grounded approach suggests that presence, not accumulation, is the true measure of value, redefining materialism through acts of mindfulness and attention.
Round 24: Ritualware by Ariana Kimball is presented as part of Cage Match Project’s 2025 Input/Output (I/O) Residency, a program dedicated to supporting emerging artists working in installation and spatial storytelling. The next application cycle opens July 7 and closes August 4, 2025, for our Fall 2025 residency beginning in September. The program is open to recent graduates and upper-level undergraduates in Central Texas, with a focus on supporting Queer, BIPOC, gender-nonconforming, and female artists. Learn more and apply through the “Open Calls” tab on our website available in english y en español.