Florence In Ruin - or - The Great Escape

An opening reception for Florence in Ruin: An Excavation by Sara Velas with introduction by Margo Bistis and Norman Klein

Thursday, November 12, 2026 - 7:30pm

 

 

Florence in Ruin—or—The Great Escape
Doors open: 7:30pm
Slide Show by Sara Velas and Ruby Carlson w/Introduction by Norman Klein & Margo Bistis: 8:00pm
Garden Reception: 8:30 - 9:30pm

Tickets $18 (Free for VPES Members with advanced RSVP to vpes@panoramaonview.org)

Archivists Sara Velas and Ruby Carlson will present a 20 min. experimental slideshow Florence in Ruin—or—The Great Escape for the opening of the installation Florence in Ruin: An Excavation by Sara Velas, on view at the Velaslavasay Panorama November 13th thru December 19th, 2026.

Originally presented at the 2024 Magic Lantern Conference aboard the Queen Mary, the former Cunard ocean liner, Florence in Ruin—or—The Great Escape is an experimental dual-projection slide lecture combining 35mm and magic lantern slides. The work interrogates the development of modern academic conceptions of visual beauty, geolocating art and beauty within the circulation of images and value through the port complex. Drawing on cinematic references ranging from Patrick Keiller’s Robinson in Space (1997) and Reveries: Going Deeper (2020) to David Zucker’s The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad! (1988), among others, the lecture offers a playful invocation of Rimbaud’s “systematic derangement of the senses.”

This event is the inaugural iteration of the series The Archival Phantasist, made in collaboration with Velaslavasay Panorama curators/artists Sara Velas and Ruby Carlson and curators/writers Norman Klein and Margo Bistis, who will introduce the performance and lead an informal discussion in the garden to follow. 

 

Florence in Ruin: An Excavation

On View November 13, 2026 - December 19, 2026

An installation that organizes and displays a psychic fixation on the Alameda Corridor and the Port of Long Beach as a terminal for corruption, paranoia, petroleum industries, and the transmission of art history. 

Florence in Ruin: An Excavation is a part of the 2026 Hyper SoCal initiative, which brings awareness to nonprofit and municipal art venues supporting working artists in Southern California. The exhibition is made possible in part by the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts and the Velaslavasay Panorama Enthusiast Society.