Empire Fall: James Powditch

To enter James Powditch’s studio feels less like stepping into a workspace and more like descending into a contemporary catacomb—layer upon layer of material fastidiously catalogued on the overflowing shelves. It represents the flotsam of our world, washed up on the rocks of contemporary society and assigned new meaning by a master chronicler and salvager of the symbols that have inherently made us. Empire Fall is an exhibition that takes a long view of history through a contemporary lens. The artist transforms patinated fragments—industrial offcuts, obsolete signage, cultural refuse—into elevated, animated edifices that challenge us to truly look at history, not merely what’s purported to be history.

Since the beginning of recorded time, the world—and humanity’s place within it—has been strewn with the detritus of empire. From the ancient city-states of Babylon to the jungle temple-states of Central America, and on to the omnipresent Eastern and Western hegemonies—empires have risen and fallen, each dominating its corner of the world in its time. The legacy of empire explains much about how and why the world functions as it does today—and, importantly, gestures toward what may come.

Empire is a recurring condition of the human spirit. It reflects our most primal urges—ownership, control, enrichment—gathered under the seductive banner of strength. Rather than knowing boundaries, an empire requires the continual pushing of them. In truth, the one enduring certainty of the contemporary world is that the idea of empire—in all its evolving forms—remains the essential driver behind our systems, ideologies, and mythology.