'Chaotic Creator Couple', Hillerbrand+Magsamen, Survey On View at FotoFest Houston
Baking Soda, Installation view nothing is precious, everything is game, FotoFest, 2025. ©Hillerbrand+Magsamen.
Cranbrook Academy of Art alumna Mary Magsamen (MFA Sculpture 1994) and alumnus Stephan Hillerbrand’s (MFA Sculpture 1994) first mid-career survey, nothing is precious, everything is game, is on view at FotoFest’s Silver Street Studios in Houston through November 22, 2025. Their survey was featured in Houstian Mag, and a special feature from Lenscratch includes interview questions from the couple’s children, Luce and Emmett.
Mandala, 2014. One of twelve total works in the series, nine of which are currently on display at FotoFest’s Hillerbrand+Magsamen: nothing is precious, everything is game survey. Courtesy of Hillerbrand+Magsamen and FotoFest.
The exhibition, co-curated by FotoFest’s Steven Evans and Madi Murphy, draws from over 25 years of the duo’s work in photography, video, sculpture, performances, and mixed media. Key pieces include early projects like Air Hunger (2001) and House/Hold (2012), plus recent works such as Expand (2024), which transforms fragments of their home into digitally altered portraits probing memory and change.
An immersive performance at The Museum of Fine Arts Houston, Mountains, created with playwright Kirk Lynn, was presented in conjunction with the FotoFest exhibition.
Their ambitious 147 Devices for Integrated Principles project is included, made between 2017 and 2020 in collaboration with playwright Kirk Lynn. The work reimagines everyday objects—from toys to household tools—as whimsical “devices” that help confront life’s challenges and anxieties.
Hillerbrand+Magsamen’s collaborative practice is deeply rooted in their home life. The couple met during their studies at the Academy, and later made their home in Houston, turning their home environment into an artistic laboratory. Their objects, rituals, and relationships are transformed into large-scale visual reflections on memory, play, and impermanence.
Prior to this survey, they were awarded the inaugural Interdisciplinary Craft + Photography Residency from the Houston Center for Contemporary Craft and the Houston Center for Photography in 2020.
Learn More:
Fluxus Funsters Hillerbrand+Magsamen Finally Get a Long-Overdue Survey – Houstonian Mag
Hillerbrand+Magsamen: nothing is precious, everything is game – Lenscratch
