Artists Reimagining Community 

Common Ground: Artists Reimagining Community integrates the participatory strategies of social practice art to organize communities in debate and collaboration with modes of curatorial activism approaches that challenge the assumptions and erasures of voices in hegemonic narratives. Inspired by mutual aid societies that assist members communally and employing this as a curatorial strategy, the curator invited ten artists to exhibit who, in turn, each invited an artist who then each asked an artist to participate, and the project continues to expand.

 

The work included in Common Ground: Artists Reimagining Community engages, investigates, and questions the concepts of what “community” is, how we, as a communal society, engage in civil contestation and have the ability to reimagine what it can be by addressing the sociopolitical and economic ruptures laid bare by COVID-19 and the BLM movement. Who is empowered to be heard and participate in crafting what makes a happy, healthy, equitable, and socioeconomically thriving community? Art, as a mode of storytelling, can facilitate these conversations.

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Jennifer Vanderpool, Ph.D.

Guest Curator

William Rolland Gallery of Fine Art 

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