Museum of Contemporary Religious Art Opens Two New Exhibitions
ST. LOUIS - Saint Louis University’s Museum of Contemporary Religious Art (MOCRA) presents two exhibitions that explore the ways in which the places we inhabit shape us and are shaped by us.
“To See This Place: Awakening to Our Common Home” and “Legacy: Selections from the Gerald R. and Mary Reid Brunstrom Gift of Art from Australia” open on Friday, Sept. 5.
“To See This Place: Awakening to Our Common Home”
“To See This Place: Awakening to Our Common Home” presents the work of three artists who heighten our awareness of the spaces we inhabit and help transform climate despair into climate hope.
Ten years ago, Pope Francis published Laudato Si’: On Care for Our Common Home, a wake-up call addressing the global ecological crisis. Drawing on disciplines ranging from climate science to sociology, Francis proposed an “integral ecology” linking our treatment of the environment with our treatment of fellow human beings. Laudato Si’ also expresses the conviction that the arts and artists play a crucial role in combating climate change and healing relationships.
Curated by Al Miner and MOCRA Director David Brinker, “To See This Place” presents work by Athena LaTocha, Mary Mattingly, and Tyler Rai. Spanning the disciplines of painting, photography, sculpture, video, and performative art, and informed by intensive research, the work of these three artists resonates with the major themes of Laudato Si’.
About the Artists
- Athena LaTocha (b. 1969) is an artist whose works on paper explore the relationship between human-made and natural worlds. She incorporates materials such as ink, lead, soils, and wood, looking at mark-marking and displacement of materials made by industrial equipment and natural events. Her works are informed by her upbringing in the wilderness of Alaska. LaTocha’s process is about being immersed in these environments, while responding to the stories and, at times, traumatic histories that are rooted in places.
- Mary Mattingly (b. 1978) is an interdisciplinary artist whose work explores ecological relationships through sculptural ecosystems, performative installations, and research-based collaborations. Rooted in a deep inquiry into urban ecology and interdependence, her work addresses urgent issues around water, food systems, and climate adaptation. At the core of Mattingly’s practice is a belief in art as a form of investigation and a tool for imagining adaptive futures. Her installations often function both symbolically and practically: creating space for gathering, co-learning, and reflecting on systems of resource extraction and ecological resilience.
- Tyler Rai (b. 1991) is a transdisciplinary artist, ritualist, and producer who works across live performance, narrative essays, and experimental sound works. She draws connections between grief and mourning practices, biological and cultural inheritances, geologic time, and ecological change to reveal the poetic entanglements between spirituality, mythology, embodied experience, and earth's ecological systems. She notes, “My body is an extension of the earth, and therefore the earth is always a research partner.”
“Legacy: Selections from the Gerald R. and Mary Reid Brunstrom Gift of Art from Australia”
Legacy: Selections from the Gerald R. and Mary Reid Brunstrom Gift of Art from Australia presents selections from a recent major gift of art to MOCRA. The artists featured are Robyn Daw, Ian Friend, Karen Papacek, and Jörg Schmeisser.
From 1988 to 2000, St. Louis art lovers frequented the Austral Gallery in Lafayette Square. Guided by the vision of founder Mary Reid Brunstrom with the unwavering support of her late husband Jerry, Austral Gallery brought some of the most significant Australian voices in contemporary art to St. Louis and contributed to a growing awareness in North America of Australian Aboriginal art.
Brunstrom played a key role in organizing two MOCRA exhibitions: in 1995, Ian Friend: The Edge of Belief – paintings, sculpture, and works on paper, 1980–1994, and in 1997, Utopia Body Paint Collection and Australian Aboriginal Art from St. Louis Collections.
In 2024, Brunstrom donated a major body of works by both Aboriginal and non-Indigenous Australian artists to MOCRA and the Saint Louis University Museum of Art, greatly enhancing both museums’ collections. MOCRA is pleased to present a selection of works from this gift and celebrate the lasting contribution of Jerry and Mary Brunstrom to the cultural fabric of St. Louis.
Event Details
Exhibition Preview
- When: 5-9 p.m. on Friday, Sept. 5.
- Where: MOCRA, 3700 West Pine Boulevard on the Saint Louis University campus.
- Cost: Free.
Curatorial Talk and Opening Reception
- When: 1 p.m. on Saturday, Sept. 6, followed by an opening reception from 2-4 p.m.
- Where: MOCRA, 3700 West Pine Boulevard on the Saint Louis University campus.
- Cost: Free.
The exhibitions continue through Dec. 14. MOCRA is open from 11 a.m.-4 p.m. Wednesday- Sunday, with extended hours until 7 p.m. on Thursdays.
About MOCRA
Saint Louis University’s Museum of Contemporary Religious Art (MOCRA) is the first museum to bring an interfaith focus to contemporary art. Officially opened in 1993, MOCRA is located in a spacious chapel that was used for over 35 years by Jesuits studying philosophy at Saint Louis University. Through exhibitions, collections, and educational programs, MOCRA highlights and explores the ways contemporary visual artists engage the religious and spiritual dimensions. MOCRA serves the diverse Saint Louis University community, and the wider public, by facilitating personal discovery, experience, and inspiration, while contributing to a wider culture of interfaith encounter and dialogue. More information at slu.edu/mocra.