Chela Ixcopal, co-curator and an artist featured in the exhibition, said he wants visitors to sit with the complexity of experiences and emotions.
“I would hope that they get angry, they get confused, they get a lot of emotions about it, I want them to start thinking critically about this exhibition, and start talking about it with other people,” they said. “Because this is such a big topic right now, especially towards the campaign that’s going to be coming up, voting is coming up. And both sides, Democrat or Republican, have always talked about immigration rights badly. I just want people to get educated about it. So that way, when they do vote, they’re able to vote in a critical thinking way.”
Yaqeen Yamani, a Palestinian photographer and artist studying at Temple University, offered her perspective as an international student.
Her work includes “Those Who Love You Will Feed You Pomegranates,” a video installation, and a text piece called “Checking In,” a collective work created from actual text messages Palestinians in the U.S. and Palestinian-Americans have received, both before and during the current Israel-Gaza War. The formatted texts show the absence of the words “Palestinian” or “Palestine” from many people’s messages of care.
“For me and many others, it is an act of erasure, when you don’t really acknowledge where we are from when you are trying to ask about us, and our families, and how we’re doing during this time,” Yamani said.
Yamani said art is “powerful and needed,” and plays an important role in naming and bridging gaps in understanding.
“It was scary for me being here and looking at the way that the news was talking about us, and the way people talk about Palestinians,” she said. “This is an opportunity for all of us to learn how to come together in a way to really show care, and at the same time recognition … I think about my work as a chance for learning.”
Rocio Cabello, co-founder of Imperfect Gallery, said the exhibition also offers a chance for immigrants to come together and examine their shared experiences. Cabello, who moved to the U.S. from Peru as a teenager, recognized the many layers of immigrant life in the works on display.
“When you are doing this on your own, or with your own family, you don’t know how universal that experience is until you meet somebody that comes from a whole other side of the world,” she said. “And yet, they had the same exact experience of wanting to belong, assimilating, but not too much … you still want to hang on to your things.”
As an educator at Puentes de Salud, an immigrant-serving organization in South Philadelphia, Lemus said he has witnessed the impact art can have and stressed the need for more funding for arts opportunities for immigrant communities.
“Through art, they get to share a lot of their experiences, not just to their community, but to other groups or other communities to share and express the realities that we face,” he said. “I think that we need to find ways to make art accessible to not just our community, but all marginalized or low income communities, because … it’s a way of finding yourself.”
Indivisible is on display through Aug. 3, and more details can be found online. The gallery and curators will be hosting a block party on Saturday, July 27, from 5 p.m. to 8:30 p.m.
إرسال تعليق