Magic Broccoli Forest is an immersive, solo exhibition by Melbourne-based artist, Rosa Nussbaum, about friendship and depression. During the pandemic, the artist and her friends used the broccoli emoji to stand in for depression when it was too hard to say out loud. During this time, Nussbaum felt goal-oriented structures washing away, leaving behind kindness, joy, and care. In this interactive exhibition, she focuses on magical portraits of the people who helped her in her wanderings through the Broccoli Forest of depression.
In the gallery, viewers are immersed in a forest of inflatable silk broccoli and projected landscape on the walls, where they get to interact with a cast of roaming magical creatures. These creatures are based on the artist’s friends and family. When viewers call these forest friends to hear pre-recorded stories from real people in her life.

About the artist:
Rosa Nussbaum holds a BFA in Print and Time Based Media from Wimbledon College of Arts, London and an MFA in Studio Art from the University of Texas, Austin. She has held residencies at CERN Supercollider, Switzerland; Vermont Studio Center; Residency Unlimited, Rair, Philadelphia, Paradise AiR, Japan, and Elsewhere Museum as an NEA Southern Constellation Fellow. She has exhibited at galleries, museums, and festivals, such as Experimenta 15 in Cardiff, Wales; Glasgow International, Scotland; BabyCastles, NYC; Women & Their work, Austin, TX; and ACC Galerie, Weimar, Germany. Most recently, she was the 2021/22 Printmaker-in-Residence at Lawrence Art Center, where she produced this solo exhibition.

This exhibition was curated by Kevin Brophy for Penn State Berks thanks to support of the Dr. Ruth M. Freyberger Endowment for the Arts. The original presentation of this exhibition was made possible through the support of the Windgate Foundation at Lawrence Art Center, KS.