Long Lost Friend installed at The Print Center in Philadelphia, PA, 2019.
Long Lost Friend is a totemic archive of folk magic-inspired matter. Approximated and inauthentic, various images and 3D scans of talismans and charms suggest a world of superstition removed from tradition; an aestheticized staging situated between boutique and library with references to both the past and future. The exhibition title comes from the Nineteenth Century book of spells and home remedies, Pow-wows or Long Lost Friend, by John George Hohman. Utilizing a series of texts and other historical sources, Urban and Mutchler have interwoven symbols and runes to arrive at something both of the rational world and outside it.