Roman Ondak blurs the boundaries between art and everyday life to explore the gap in between. Measuring The Universe continues this exploration by counting on the spontaneous participation of every visitor entering the gallery space. At the intersection of public art and site-specific installation, Ondak’s piece engages everyone through the mundane and yet familiar exercise of being measured (height) with the name and date of their visit inscribed directly on the gallery walls. As the artist describes it: “The idea is taken from a habit of parents to measure children,” which he does in his own home with his two sons. “I was thinking about this very peripheral and marginal moment of everyday life to be expanded and…transformed to the context of the exhibition.”

Presented on the Kenyon College campus during the 2024-2025 academic year at The Gund, Measuring The Universe will evolve as audience members visit the gallery and participate in its formation. Over the days, months, and weeks, the accumulation of notations (measurements, names, and dates) will transform the white walls into an abstract yet very moving portrait of our community of museumgoers and visitors. Halfway between a participatory drawing and a performance, the artwork will attest to the diversity of presences — physically — but also will become a symbolic meditation on our commonalities. Just like when parents mark the passage of time by measuring the growth of their children, Measuring the Universe aims to hold on to time through a collective mark-making exercise that invites each of us to remember our singularity, but also that we were here together, so that we may enter a more collective approach to remembrance, time passing, and our responsibility to be part of the whole.