The 450k - Washington DC

Curated, organized, and installed by Kimberley Blair Harshbarger and her team, this exhibition of mixed-media works by Poetonic is currently on display at the 450K complex in Washington, D.C.

Situated at 450 K Street NW, 450K sits at the intersection of the historic Mount Vernon Triangle and D.C.’s rapidly evolving downtown business district. The building’s modern, high-density design and central position within the city’s urban core provide a fitting backdrop for Poetonic’s exploration of contemporary material culture and the manufactured order of daily life.

This display is composed of a 3x3 mixed-media collage that examines the tension between authenticity and control in the digital age. Through a disciplined process of reverse excavation—a method of deconstructing obsolete media and consumer fragments before rebuilding them—the work transforms discarded materials into a renewed visual field.

This practice foregrounds intuitive creation over the quantifying systems that dominate modern life. By stripping away the manufactured order of the everyday, the work invites viewers to look beyond marketplace logic and toward a deeper, more personal form of self-understanding.

Rooted in over ten years of dedication to mixed-media collage, Poetonic’s work highlights the medium’s profound capacity for sustainability, expressive freedom, and transformation. Here, collage is presented as an essential human practice—one that champions vulnerability and authenticity in a world increasingly defined by polished simulacra.