The Murray State University Galleries and the Department of Art & Design are pleased to announce Lorrie Fredette: Nowhere Else Exists. Show dates for Nowhere Else Exists are August 17 through September 17, 2021 in the Mary Ed Mecoy Hall Gallery on the Sixth Floor of the Doyle Fine Arts Building. ABOUT THE ARTIST: Lorrie Fredette creates suspended, site-specific installations inspired by medical and environmental news pulled from today’s headlines. Recent exhibitions include the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, Georgia, San Jose Institute of Contemporary Art in San Jose, California, and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Jacksonville, Florida. Fredette received her BFA from the Herron School of Art + Design. Fredette lives and works in New York’s scenic mid-Hudson Valley. ABOUT THE WORK: About this exhibit, Lorrie Fredette writes: “Nowhere Else Exists is an installation of pod-like clusters suspended from the ceiling of the Mary Ed Mecoy Hall Gallery. It considers the full range of intersections of nature with human health and illness at the micro level. I meticulously record the minuscule shifts of cellular biology coaxing these images into dimensional shapes, gathering them into unsystematic clusters that form new organisms whose consequences for human health, like so much in nature, remains to be discovered. The installation implies several infectious diseases including influenza, vector-borne diseases like Malaria, dengue, West Nile, as well as water related illnesses of Cholera and E. coli. The spread of infectious diseases is being affected by climate change. How could it not be? Rising temperatures, more extreme weather, rising sea levels, increased CO2 levels – bring about extreme heat, severe weather, air pollution, changes in vector ecology, increasing allergens, water quality impacts, water and food supply impacts and environmental degradation. Diseases, injuries, fatalities and mental health impacts are the outcomes. Heat-related illness, death and cardiovascular failure. Asthma, cardiovascular disease. Malaria, dengue, encephalitis, hantavirus, Rift Valley fever, Lyme disease, chikungunya and West Nile virus. Respiratory allergies, asthma. Cholera, cryptosporidiosis, campylobacter, leptospirosis, harmful algal blooms. Malnutrition, diarrheal disease. Forced migration, civil conflict and mental health impacts. We are here. It is now.” An artist talk by Fredette will take place at a later date. Gallery hours are Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., with extended hours to be announced on Tuesday and Thursday. Admission is free and open to the public.