Through photographs of staples, shattered glass, discarded materials, and her circulating “readers,” Mo Costello turns the overlooked residue of public life into a meditation on memory, resistance, communication, and community.
Not every artwork at the Whitney Biennial 2026 announces itself loudly.
Some works ask you to look more closely.
To notice what might normally disappear into the background.
A telephone pole.
A fragment of broken glass.
A torn flyer.
A surface marked by something that is no longer there.
Mo Costello’s photographs occupy precisely this space, documenting traces of social and political activity that remain after the larger event has passed. The Whitney identifies Costello as one of the artists featured in the 2026 Biennial. (Whitney Museum of American Art)
Looking at What Remains
Costello does not necessarily photograph the event itself.
She photographs its aftermath.
A roadside telephone pole covered in staples suggests the flyers, announcements, messages, or calls to action that once occupied its surface.
The paper is gone.
The information has disappeared.
But the staples remain.
Those tiny marks become evidence.
They point toward acts of communication that once moved through a community, leaving behind only a physical trace.
What might normally appear insignificant becomes a record of something larger.
The Afterlife of an Event
In another photograph, shattered glass outside a MARTA transit station in downtown Atlanta registers differently once placed within Costello’s practice.
On an ordinary day, broken glass might be dismissed as debris.
Something accidental.
Something to be cleaned away.
But Costello’s attention transforms it.
The fragment becomes a trace of resistance—a physical remainder of an event that has already happened but has not disappeared completely.
Her photographs ask us to consider what happens after the dramatic moment is over.
What remains when the crowd leaves?
When the sign comes down?
When the news cycle moves on?
History often survives through residue.
Photography as an Exercise in Attention
The power of Costello’s work comes from this shift in focus.
She directs attention away from spectacle and toward the seemingly minor evidence left behind.
The viewer is asked not simply to recognize an object but to wonder about what preceded it.
Who placed those flyers?
What message did they carry?
What happened outside that transit station?
What larger systems or communities left these marks behind?
The photographs never need to answer every question.
Their power lies in making us notice that the questions exist.
History in Everyday Surfaces
Within the Whitney Biennial 2026, Costello’s work resonates with the exhibition’s broader attention to systems, relationships, communities, and lived experience.
History does not only appear through monuments and major political events.
It appears on walls.
On sidewalks.
On telephone poles.
Outside transit stations.
Across surfaces that people pass every day without noticing.
Costello treats the landscape as a kind of informal archive.
Cities record what happens within them.
The evidence is simply not always preserved in obvious ways.
Georgia as a Specific Landscape
There is a strong sense of place throughout Costello’s practice.
Her photographs are rooted in Georgia, including Atlanta and Athens.
That specificity matters.
The images carry the visual rhythms of those environments and the communities moving through them.
Yet the larger idea extends well beyond Georgia.
Every city contains traces.
Every neighborhood accumulates physical evidence of political activity, communication, conflict, celebration, loss, and change.
The question is whether anyone stops long enough to see them.
The Reader as an Artwork in Circulation
Costello’s practice extends beyond photography through works she calls “readers.”
These assembled publications combine her own images with found and reproduced materials.
Local archival content.
Essays.
Coupons.
Flyers.
Printed fragments gathered from the artist’s surroundings.
The format mirrors the layered nature of the environments she photographs.
Different kinds of information occupy the same space, producing unexpected relationships between personal observation, public history, advertising, scholarship, and everyday communication.
Taking Art Back Into the Community
What becomes particularly significant is how Costello distributes these readers.
Instead of limiting them to museums, galleries, or bookstores, they circulate through gas stations, pharmacies, and other local businesses around Athens, Georgia.
The artwork moves back into everyday life.
That distribution method reflects the very systems Costello photographs.
Information circulates through communities.
Flyers move from hand to hand.
Printed materials appear in public spaces.
Messages are posted, removed, replaced, and forgotten.
Costello’s readers enter that same circulation.
The distribution is not separate from the artwork.
It becomes part of it.
Beyond the Museum
This movement outside traditional art spaces is especially meaningful within the Whitney Biennial.
The Biennial may take place within a major museum, but many of the works challenge the idea that contemporary art should remain confined there.
Costello’s practice moves between documentation and participation.
She photographs how information travels through public environments, then creates printed material that enters those environments again.
The process becomes cyclical.
Community produces traces.
Costello observes them.
The observations become artwork.
The artwork returns to the community.
Learning to See the City Differently
Amid the larger installations and immersive environments of the Whitney Biennial, Costello’s photographs require a different kind of attention.
They ask you to slow down.
To look carefully.
To reconsider the importance of a tiny mark.
That change in attention can follow you outside the museum.
Suddenly, the city begins to look different.
A scratched wall becomes evidence.
An abandoned sign suggests a story.
A cluster of staples reveals previous layers of communication.
A fragment on the pavement becomes a reminder that something happened there.
History Lives in Traces
Mo Costello’s work ultimately challenges the idea that history is only found in dramatic images or official archives.
History can be quiet.
Fragmentary.
Nearly invisible.
It can survive as an imprint long after the original event has disappeared.
Within the Whitney Biennial 2026, her photographs become a powerful reminder that the world around us is constantly recording what happens.
Every surface can become an archive.
Every fragment can carry a story.
And sometimes understanding the present begins with learning how to notice what everyone else has already walked past.
Explore the Complete Tarik Talk Whitney Biennial 2026 Series
Tarik Talk created dedicated coverage of every artist featured in the Whitney Biennial 2026, with individual episodes exploring the artists, artworks, ideas, and perspectives shaping this edition of the Biennial.
Watch and listen to the complete series across Tarik Talk’s podcast streaming platforms and social media platforms, and explore the full Whitney Biennial 2026 series on TarikTalk.com.