What does it mean to truly observe a person, and to depict them—or ourselves—with love and care?
Systems like colonialism and white supremacy categorize, label, and create hierarchies among different bodies that can shape or distort our perceptions of ourselves and each other. The art we consume and make can also create or reinforce ideas about who is visible, valuable, or beautiful. So how might we learn to see and represent all people in ways that foster more peace, justice, and respect?
Re/Presenting: Art Beyond the Color Line is a year-long project to reinterpret Mead collections, posing critical questions about making and consuming art in a multiracial democracy. The exhibition brings together a wide range of work from the 18th century to the present, by artists from Brazil, France, Haiti, India, Japan, North America, and Tibet, as well as art made throughout the year by students at Wildwood Elementary School and visitors to the exhibition. It explores art that creates, affirms, and challenges ideas of beauty, value, power, and presence.
Re/Presenting takes inspiration from EmbraceRace’s innovative curriculum Drawing Differences. The curriculum provides a framework for addressing the underrepresentation of diverse characters in children's drawings through hands-on activities that encourage a wide range of depictions of skin colors, hair textures, and facial features. The organizers of Re/Presenting aim to hold space for visitors to think critically, feel fully, and be active participants in making art that is compassionate and true. The interactive exhibition at the Mead invites people of all ages and backgrounds to think deeply and expansively about the role of color, heritage, and media representation–in and beyond art on view in a museum–in shaping powerful political ideas, and to experience an art exhibition by sketching, braiding, sculpting, and talking.