UNFOLDING

We, the students of the world, exist in a constant state of suspended anticipation as we watch multiple genocides unfold on our screens, before our eyes — in real time. How can we commit to these struggles, not only as witnesses and documentarians, but also as practical forces for collective action? 

This exhibition offers a space to recognize and reflect on what’s happening around us. It is a space to expand on, rather than limit, our definitions of what art is or how we make it. Through embracing multiple modes of making, transmission, experience, and documentation, we ask what art does to contribute to this time of perpetual global student uprising for liberation against genocide, state violence, ecocide, and apartheid. We ask, how does information that guides action circulate? How do our deliberately varied, emergent, material strategies and social relationships enable cross-movement solidarity? How are we, as artists in the imperial core, breaking free from the individualistic expectations of our field and building collective power? How do we recognize contradiction , uncertainty, and failure, yet remain steadfast? What revolutionary possibilities exist precisely at this moment of unraveling?

UNFOLDING responds to these questions through practical and material means. We harness strategies for making and doing that are deliberately slippery, multiple, ephemeral, and mutable. We look to print media’s history and present utility as a radically accessible means of communication. We look to installation and participatory happenings to interrupt and transform institutional space. We look to digital tools – the internet’s infinite connectivity and instant e-commerce, a projector’s ephemeral mark, and sound’s invisible but palpable resonance with everything in its path — to transcend borders. We look to the directness of painting and drawing to remind us of two parallel powers — opacity and representation — in fights for liberation. Through relationships with physical objects — a text, a print, a tent, a stone — we insist on unearthing and leaving material evidence of liberatory actions. We ask that those experiencing this work with us do not leave this co-created space empty-handed. And, that you feel compelled to contribute as generously as you can toward our cause.

Unfold the printed zine you shoved into your pocket from the day before. Slap on some watered down glue-flour and wheat paste it to the wall. We’ll see you in the gallery, on the internet, at the library, on the airwaves, tending the garden, hopping turnstile, and out in the streets.

GATHERINGS

A variety of events - community gatherings, workshops, talks, art builds — will be held in and around Mason Gross Galleries. Please check back here for updates in programming. Free and open to the public.

MEDIA SCREENINGS

Films, video- & audio-based works and broadcasts will be played in Gallery B each day of UNFOLDING. Please refer to the program to access this content and more. All media thematically curated — however, kindly preview *starred* content for graphic imagery. Streamed radio , played in intermission of films listed, may not be censored.

Films curated by Selma Mehmedagić.

CATALOG OF WORKS

Works in the show merit methods of transmission, though are not limited to the print medium. Featured artists (students and alumni) hail from Rutgers' Mason Gross School of Art, but also Columbia University, School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and Pathshala Institute in Dhaka. Additional artists and organizations have joined us.

Art and exhibition documentation to come.

ART AUCTION FOR GAZA

Twenty artists have donated an array of prints and unique art pieces in an auction to raise direct aid through Operation Olive Branch. for Gazan families’ food, water, shelter, medical, and evacuation costs. We hope you feel compelled to contribute as generously as you can, and to share the link with your community.

https://rutgersmgsaartdesignmfa.betterworld.org/auctions/unfolding-auction

A NOTE

In Remembrance and Power. May Allah ease the pain and suffering of Palestinians and grant martyrs the highest ranks of Jannah. Free Palestine and all those oppressed in the world.

The work in this show could not have been accomplished without the generous embrace from our community- namely Jason Hirata, Rich Siggilino, Evie Horton, Randy Hemminghaus, Ana Rucker, Graham Krenz, Asem Kiyalova, Maura Diaz, Emily Miller, Lekha Kachinadam, Dan Lucal, Mikaila Ng, Natalie Romero, Ian Byers-Gamber, Pachi Morocho, Justyn Morris, Nilo Goldfarb, Jacob C., Jake Peron, Sasha, Jules Garder, Rachel Mulvihill, Nate Millstein, Milu Naher, Mamun Syed, Sarah Tasneem, Sayeeda Akhter, and you!