December 13, 2015 - 13:42
Freedom Forgotten, Works of Silence and Resistance
It is hard for me to write academically about our event, when all I want to do is espouse the love and pride I have for everyone in this 360, the amazing work that we all produced and the incredible conversation our works generated. Every single piece was a complex commentary on the PIC and the structures that have built the PIC in the United States today. And again, it was made abundantly clear that each of us has a voice that has something important and real to say. What was so stunning though was the way that each of our very individual creativity, our vastly different methods of expression, were all so poignant in the gallery space and so expertly and beautifully able to comment on the issues that the prison industrial complex breeds and is borne of in the United States.
I heard about so many powerful conversations that were sparked by the different pieces around the gallery and it was a really informative experience hearing about the ideas that were discussed our work. Personally, I chose not to engage as much in these discussions. In part because I have become exhausted by the constant and continuous discussion around the schoolwork I have been doing, not just over this semester but throughout these past three and a half years, and it felt immensely relieving to be able to sit back and allow my art to speak for me, and in part because I intentionally wanted my art to speak in a way that words sometimes cannot. I would have happily answered any questions about my sculpture but I also did not seek out the people viewing my sculpture.
I found my words in this 360, words that I have not allowed myself to access in a very long time, and while in some ways it allowed me to express myself exactly how I would intend to, in other ways it clouded my ability to get my point across, and complicated the way I speak and write about issues that are important to me. And it has been exhausting. Wonderful, important, necessary, and exhausting and so I decided to put words aside for a while, and speak silently through art.