Fernanda D'Agostino tackles big issues—food, fate, death, and memory—while drawing upon family history and personal associations. Her densely layered installations integrate sculpture, architecture, landscape, sound, performance, and video in spaces charged with meaning and innuendo. D'Agostino seeks to "engage the viewer in an ever more complete experience." She uses touchable objects; covers floors with grain, salt, and handmade felt; installs sound technology that responds to movement; and even planted a half-acre of corn that fed low-income families. While summer projects are based in landscape, winter projects at the Elizabeth Leach Gallery, Portland, are more philosophical. But all become events that bring people together. After reading her husband's grandfather's Holocaust diary, D'Agostino felt compelled to share "the deep gut realization I experienced...that Fate can intervene in anyone's life with little warning." Her 1994 piece Fate explored how historic events can affect the lives of ordinary people. D'Agostino created Imagining the Other Side in 1996 in response to her father's death. Three connecting rooms embodied different paradigms of the afterlife. A singer performed music that underscored the tone of each room's environment. D'Agostino's recent Theater of Memory projects layers of video imagery onto transparent scrims and sandblasted glass to evoke "the inner architecture of dreams and memories." In addition to installations, she has created numerous public art projects in Oregon and Washington.
