1,000 Ways to Hold

1,000 Ways to Hold is the culmination of a year-long participatory project by Stanford Arts' 2025–26 Visiting Artist Erika Chong Shuch, rooted in conversation and clay. Developed in response to a moment shaped by loneliness, fragmentation, and uncertainty, the project proposes a tender, human-scale intervention: two people at a time sit together, shape ceramic bowls in pairs, and reflect on the question, What have you held, and what has held you? Created across campus in classrooms, community spaces, and everyday gathering sites, the bowls are embedded with digital traces that capture the intimacy of these shared encounters. In this exhibition at the Anderson Collection, the bowls are gathered and activated, inviting visitors to listen, touch, and engage with a living archive of connection. Together, they form both an artwork and a collective portrait—evidence of how small acts of making and listening can hold memory, care, and community.