With institutional support from Albany Center Gallery, CollarWorks, Gallery 495, CREATE Council on the Arts, and Chatham PS1, McIntosh has activated town blocks with dispersed poems, used her handwriting on marquees, and collaborated with curators to reimagine signage as poetic infrastructure. Her approach resists spectacle, instead prioritizing intimacy, accessibility, and resonance; an ethos she brings to each new site, whether in upstate New York or beyond.
Spiral As Ritual 0001, 2020
Furniture Plus Fairview Ave., Hudson, NY
Video: LED signage on a strip mall at dusk
A public text installation using LED signage across a suburban strip mall in Hudson, NY. Partnered with curator Aaron Levi Garvey as part of the Hudson Eye Festival, the piece explored consumption, disillusionment, and pandemic-era isolation themes. Strip malls—symbols of passivity and transition—became sites of subtle interruption. Designed for viewers passing by in cars, the work considered what happens when language meets routine and meaning is absorbed slowly, almost by accident.
‘
‘Soft Urges’
Hudson Amtrak Station, January-March 2024
presented by CREATE Council on the Arts
Slideshow: Works on paper, sculptures, and wall installation
Soft Urges is a collection of paper-based works that explore nostalgia, habit, and the quiet persistence of time. Inspired by decaying city posters and the layering of public ephemera, the series meditates on emotional, physical, and temporal transitions.
The wall works (slow kinks and slow fade) use layered paper and obscured poetry to edit through concealment. Meaning emerges through erasure, each surface shaped by time and its material history. These pieces were a foundation for Keep Digging, a maximalist hanging sculpture of 128 paper clay rings arranged like a charm necklace. The rings echo gumball machine trinkets and reflect a longing for the past, a fascination with objects, and the rituals of accumulation.
Flow, 2023
Catskill, New York
Dual installation
Presented by Gallery 495 & Catskill Movie Theater
Images: Hand-painted acrylic letters on plastic and window vinyl
Gallery 495 commissioned Flow, a two-part public poem installed across Main Street in Catskill, NY. My full-length poem was broken into stanzas and presented on two ends of town—one handwritten on the shuttered marquee of the Catskill Movie Theater, the other across the windows of the newly opening gallery. Each site activated a different layer of local history: the long-dormant theater, central to Catskill’s collective memory; the gallery, a regeneration signal. Together, the work invited viewers to experience the town as a living poem unfolding between the past and the future.
Epitaph, 2021–2022
Curated by Jenni Crain
Image: Vinyl text installation
Initially exhibited at Charim Schleifmuhlgasse in Vienna, Austria, curated by Jenni Crain, and remounted in 2022 at Gordon Robichaux in New York City. This work was presented alongside artists Patricia L. Boyd, Theresa Hak Kyung Cha, Taylor Davis, Masao Gozu, Dan Graham, and Park McArthur.
Notes On The Sky, 2021
Video installation — digital video and audio files
Presented at Baba Yaga Gallery in Hudson, NY, this video installation explored atmosphere and sonic memory through layered digital footage and sound. The exhibition also featured works by Elbert Perez and Sean Desiree.
Untitled (Albany Theater Series), 2021
The Palace Theater, Albany, NY — March–April 2021
Presented by Albany Center Gallery and CollarWorks
Video: LED sign
Madison Theater, Albany, NY — March–April 2021
Presented by Albany Center Gallery and CollarWorks
Image: Text installation- vinyl lettering on marquee sign
A poem was installed in separate historic theaters, designed to act as a call and response. Upon entering Albany from the thruway, the viewer encountered the first verse and a reprise five blocks later—creating an echo across the commute.
Untitled (Takk House Marquee), 2021
Takk House, Troy, NY January 29–31, 2021
Presented by CollarWorks Gallery for ProjectxProjectxProject Video and Image: theater marquee text installation
A temporary text installation using the venue’s marquee to present poetry
A Poem, 2021
Images: Vinyl panels on storefront window
The 405 Project, Hudson, NY
January–April 2021
A Poem is a site-specific installation that adapts two poems into large-scale vinyl texts across storefront windows. Created during the pandemic, It examines ritual, repetition, and rupture, using poetic language to disrupt the loop of everyday isolation. Inspired by dreams and cultural symbolism, the piece invites collective reflection in public space.