'Actual Size'
Friday: 1 PM - 7 PM
About the Event
Space 4 Art Presents ACTUAL SIZE
Curated by Lara Bullock
Space 4 Art is pleased to present ACTUAL SIZE, a group exhibition curated by Lara Bullock, Ph.D., and featuring the work of Space 4 Art resident artists Andrew Alcasid, Diana Benavidez, Nick Lesley, and May-ling Martinez, and former Space 4 Art resident local photographer Aldo Cervantes. The exhibition opens with a public reception on Saturday, October 10, 2026, from 4 to 7 p.m. and remains on view through November 7, 2026, at Art Produce Gallery.
The final exhibition in Space 4 Art's series of seven exhibitions produced through the Prebys Arts Ecosystem grant, ACTUAL SIZE turns its attention toward the human-scale: the intimate, ordinary, and lived experiences that shape how we understand ourselves and the world around us.
We take for granted that the words “actual size” have a factual basis, despite the suspension of disbelief that occurs when they accompany an illustrative representation. Life is packaged, represented, and mediated. This “spectacle” that once provoked alarm and inspired artistic revolt in the 1960s has become scarcely remarkable today.
ACTUAL SIZE considers what happens when we return our attention to the scale of human experience. The exhibition creates space to meaningfully and slowly consider the everyday realities that affect our lives and the power we retain as individuals to bear witness, to pay attention, and to be moved to action.
This proposition feels particularly urgent at a moment when so many forces— political, technological, environmental, and social —appear to happen despite us rather than for us.
“The artists in this exhibition do not retreat from these realities,” Bullock said. “Instead, they return us to the places where life is lived: ordinary objects, familiar rituals, the built environment, and the body itself.”
There is, Bullock suggests, a boldness in this return to the immediate and the tangible.
“The exhibition does not promise an uncomplicated feeling of hope,” Bullock said. “Instead, it asks viewers to be present— to witness, observe, and simply be.”
In a culture increasingly shaped by spectacle, speed, mediation, and scale, ACTUAL SIZE proposes that attention itself is an act of significance.
By focusing on the intimate, the local, and the lived, the exhibition invites viewers to consider how individual experience can foster connection, empathy, and a renewed sense of agency. If spectacle encourages us to look everywhere at once, the artists in ACTUAL SIZE ask us to look closely instead.
Meaning begins at the scale of human experience.
Exhibition Details
Title: ACTUAL SIZE
Curated by: Lara Bullock
Presented by: Space 4 Art
Venue: Art Produce Gallery, 3139 University Ave., San Diego
Opening Reception: October 10 | 4-7 p.m.
Exhibition Dates: October 10-November 7, 2026
Sound Bath with May-ling Martinez: November 7 | 4-5 p.m.
Closing Reception: November 7 | 5-7 p.m.
Gallery Hours: Fridays 1-7 p.m. and by appointment
All events are free and open to the public. For more information, visit Space 4 Art's website (www.sdspace4art.org) or follow @sdspace4art on social media.
About the Curator
Lara Bullock, Ph.D., is a curator and scholar whose work explores contemporary art, culture, and the ways artists engage with the social , psychological, and material conditions of everyday life. Through her curatorial practice, Bullock brings together artists whose work encourages close observation and consideration of the spaces, objects, and experiences that shape our understanding of the world.
About Space 4 Art
Space 4 Art is a San Diego-based nonprofit arts organization dedicated to supporting artists and strengthening the region’s cultural ecosystem by providing access to affordable creative spaces, artist opportunities, exhibitions, public programming, and community engagement.
Art Produce Gallery
Art Produce Gallery
Purchased and rehabbed in 1999, Art Produce was once a boarded up building that had housed the North Park Produce market. Art Produce is now a non-profit community cultural center that connects artists, cultural organizations, schools, urban farmers and businesses. We support cultural production, mentor community engagement by artists and provide affordable cultural activities in a community setting. Our mission is to build community and foster civic engagement through arts, education and public culture. Art Gallery: The Gallery is entirely visible from the sidewalk and was designed to accommodate sculptural installations, cross-disciplinary works, digital media and performance events. The space allows for unconventional presentation opportunities for artists and unexpected art encounters for viewers. Intended to enliven the experience of the pedestrian it is an experiment in public art that is accessible to everyone in the community - an attempt to render visibility and transparency into the art process itself. Garden: The Garden is a public art, performance space and cultural space focused on aesthetic, educational and sustainable/green practices. It was transformed from an asphalt parking lot into an edible garden and orchard and now hosts film screenings, performances, art installations and community events. It incorporates an outdoor classroom and workspace into an urban garden that includes a rainwater catchment system and a PV solar energy system. Stone Paper Scissors Studio: Stone Paper Scissors, owned by Lynn Susholtz, has been creating art projects for public agencies, schools, business associations and communities since 1994. Previous projects have included the planning of public spaces, developing public arts initiatives for neighborhoods, collaborating with design teams, integrating art into capital projects and fabricating sculptural works.
