Selina Trepp's Unprofessional Practices spotlights analogue stop-motion and 'radical slowness'

University Galleries at Illinois State University in Normal, Illinois, is presenting Selina Trepp: Unprofessional Practices (July 17 – October 3, 2026), a solo exhibition built around the Chicago-based artist's stop-motion animations alongside paintings, collaborative performances and a takeaway process zine. Trepp makes her films by analogue means: she produces paintings, sculptures and drawings, improvises their movement, and photographs each incremental change. The gallery notes that she has worked with recycled materials rather than buying new ones since 2012.

The centrepiece, Reality's Truth (2025, about three minutes, silent), was made over 18 months by painting in oil on mirrors and manipulating sculptural elements. Speaking to WGLT on September 22, Trepp put the film at about 2,000 photographs, and explained why the mirror matters: because the camera points into it, the frame always holds both the reflection and some of the space in front of the glass, which let her change how depth of field, scale and even location read on screen. She frames that slow, low-yield process as deliberately out of step with how time and money usually work. The public programme includes an artist lecture on September 23, a stop-motion workshop on September 26 and an October 2 performance by Yea Big and friends, during which her film I Work with What I Have plays on a loop. The exhibition's zine, My Work, maps her process in hand-drawn diagrams.