If New Houston Gallery Has Its Way, 2015 is the Year for Transcendence and Swimming Hole Dreams

Self Actualization, a Houston gallery that opened only a few months ago, has some big plans for the new year. Founded by Houston-based artist Monte Large and writer Jon Lindsey, they claim, “Our interest is open-minded exploration of the transubstantiative properties of the physical spaces we occupy.” On January 9, they will open the exhibition, In the Caverns of Your Mind, a show by Ian James of “mixed media and transcendence.” The show sounds as baffling as the gallery’s mission statement; here is a paragraph from the exhibition description:

WE seek to experience in our existence, to rendezvous with our higher self. Through concentrated body movements, meditations within the blackness of our neutral psyches, and conversations with technology we seek a stair-stepping transformation process that will render our former selves unknowable to our future self.

Self Actualization’s Monte Large is also one of the folks behind “Houston Needs a Swimming Hole,” a push to create a large swimming hole near downtown Houston. They seem to be serious and, with only nine days left of their Kickstarter campaign, they are coming close to their goal.

If we get to have a “rendezvous with our higher self” and a quick dip in a downtown swimming hole, it might turn out to be a pretty good year!