What Remains Unsaid presents five artists of the 2025 UAR Residency Program who, collectively, present a body of work that refuses to provide easy answers or comforting representations of our lives. Their work does not promise hopeful forecasts. Yet, their pieces imply that there is some kind of beauty in facing loss and grief. These pieces invite us to give permission to remain with what is uncertain and exposed, to linger awhile with profound feelings which cannot be easily explained.

At the entrance of the show, Yuskadd’s The End is Near declares a direct statement—a painting of a colorful ceramic cup placed under a raised hammer, symbolizing danger and vulnerability. The letters at the bottom of the image, with no interword spacing, remind us of our collective fear of the very imminent demise of civilization. The simple objects and the text make us reflect on how fragile our private and public daily lives are.

Adelaida Cortés’s It Feels Like an Ending shifts our focus to a highly fragmented private narrative. Composed of footage the artist took with a close relative, an unadorned spoken dialogue addresses fear, grief, and the connection between private tragedy and public life. She describes days when death is imminent and family pain is endured. Rather than smoothing over the work, it mirrors us and invites us to recognize our attachments and terrors in hers, suggesting that even an uncomfortable occurrence can be a kind of communion.

Eluart’s No me toques and Rebote start with the strict order of isometric grids, inspired by old video games meant to organize space precisely. But the surfaces break such a promise of order, laden with stacked and faded colors that refuse to be contained. There is a push and pull between structure and unruly energy, mirroring how we try to contain chaos but often find it pushing back in ways we have not anticipated.

Anita Kucharczyk’s Drop is quieter, but no less moving. Created as an animation about her grandmother’s daily rituals after she moved from the countryside, it took on a new meaning after her grandmother’s death. What began as a student project became an act of mourning. Watching it now feels like seeing someone trying to hold on to memory gently, even as it slips away.

Mikaela Montenegro’s Ode to Sleep is a dream that can’t be remembered, slipping away even as we try to hold on to it. A series of whispering male voices, partly inaudible, never quite say what they mean. The visuals are distorted and tangled up in their own internal rationale. Rather than tell us anything, the piece leaves us stumped, gently wondering, Am I fighting against time, or is time fighting against me?

Together, these works do not try to explain or make us feel better, nor do they make us worse. They stay with what is left unsaid and undone as part of our private and public worlds, part of our shared finite existences. They question us: How can we live with terror, grief, and uncertainty? Can we face, even embrace, the unsaid in our own lives and in the world as a whole? What remains unsaid?

– Carolina Paz