Meryl McMaster, Cartography of the Unseen (detail), 2019
Curated by Srimoyee Mitra, Taking a Stand features artists micha cárdenas, Oliver Husain, Elizabeth LePensée, Meryl McMaster, and Syrus Marcus Ware.
Bringing together lively and energetic work, Taking a Stand highlights the ways in which artists build solidarity and shape contemporary culture as active participants in our society. The works in the exhibition encompass photography, interactive drawings, augmented reality, and 3-D film installation. Drawing on the themes of science fiction, artists in the exhibition invite audiences to time travel, blurring fact with fiction, weaving fantastical narratives and desires with ancestral knowledge, collective memories, and stories from their natural and urban environments. They acknowledge the vitality of recuperating Indigenous, migrant, and LGBTQIA subjectivities and practices to better understand how to heal our damaged planet. Even though these installations are temporary and ephemeral, they foster vibrant liminal spaces for the public to explore what could be done during this time of ever-present ecological and political change.
There will be an exhibition opening reception from 5:30-7:30 pm on Friday, January 17 featuring a special performance by Detroit-based artist Sacramento Knoxx in collaboration with Bianca Millar & White Feather Woman. On Saturday, January 18, Mitra will lead an exhibition tour at 2 pm, followed by a book discussion on Queer & Trans Artists of Color: Stories of Some of our Lives, moderated by Noura Ballout. A full schedule of exhibition and community events can be found online.
Taking a Stand will be on view at Stamps Gallery (The Penny W. Stamps School of Art & Design at the University of Michigan, 201 S. Division St., Ann Arbor, Michigan) from January 17 through February 29, 2020.
