Continuing ICA's tradition of presenting significant exhibitions in alternative spaces, artist Kimowan McLain has been commissioned to create the second in a series of site-specific installations for the ICA Ramp Project connecting the museum's first and second floor galleries.

Kimowan McLain's Without Ground (2002) creates a narrative of Native American diaspora, what McLain calls "a long walk, an excavation of an exodus, a search party sent out to find the body. They seek clues to an unnamed crime." Using manipulated photo images transferred directly to the wall, Without Ground marches like film imagery in a line of figures stretching the length of the ICA's Ramp Corridor. The work communicates an almost universal sense of uprootedness, wandering and longing for home.

McLain has been featured in one-person exhibitions at the John and June Alcott Gallery, Chapel Hill, NC; and Edmonton Art Gallery, Edmonton, Canada. He has also participated in group shows at the Boulder Museum of Art, Boulder, CO and Instituto Chileno-Norteamericano de Cultura Valparaiso, Santiago, Chile.

The Opening Reception, which is free and open to the public, is scheduled for Wednesday, September 4, 2002 from 6:00 to 9:00 pm. Exhibition Walkthroughs will take place on Wednesday September 4, 2002 at 4:30pm with Kimowan McLain and ICA Senior Curator Ingrid Schaffner. The ICA is open to the public, except during installation, from 12:00 pm to 8:00 pm on Wednesday through Friday and from 11:00 am to 5:00 pm on Saturday and Sunday. Admission is $3 for adults; $2 for students over 12, artists, and senior citizens; and free to ICA members, children 12 and under, PENN card holders, and on Sundays from 11:00 am to 1:00 pm. For more information, call 215-898-7108/5911, or visit www.icaphila.org

ICA acknowledges the generous support of The William Penn Foundation for this project. Additional funding has been provided by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, The Dietrich Foundation Inc., the Overseers Board for the Institute of Contemporary Art, friends and members of ICA, and the University of Pennsylvania. ICA is also grateful for the in-kind support of Jill and Sheldon Bonovitz. (Information complete as of 7/10/02.)