OPENING RECEPTION
FRI Nov 5 | 5pm – 8pm
SAT Nov 6 | 10am – 2pm
The reception is free and open to the public. Light refreshments will be served.
AGE OF COGNIZANCE
New Works by Ricder Ricardo, Mimi Tran, and Kirsten Williams
We are three friends with Cuban, African, Swedish, and Vietnamese heritage. A lineage of mixed races because of colonization, persecution, and prejudice. We are judged based on our heritage, sexual orientation, and the color of our skin. Our features are preconceived notions of inferiority that others have embedded into our brains for many generations. As a result, we’ve grown up thinking that it is immoral and inadequate to be who we are. Therefore, we subconsciously try to fit in because we are afraid of isolation. But, at the same time, we accept the fact that we will never fit, and opt not to lose our identity trying to morph to society’s expectations.
This exhibition, originally conceived prior to the COVID-19 pandemic and a heightened period of racial reckoning, has evolved to embrace the individual ways in which this remarkable time has impacted us. Concerns for personal health and the related isolation loomed large, but so did the more targeted challenges resulting from the Black Lives Matter movement, attacks on Asian Americans, and the Cuban anti-government protests. Nature, images of family and friends, and altered creative processes propelled these works — works created in captivity and in a time of individual and collective crisis.
Our intricate stories are connected by our creations, narrating our different struggles that are all the same in the end. The experience of the past 18 months has emphasized the universality in our specific experiences. Although we walk different paths of life, we have come together to love, accept, and embrace one another for our differences. We understand that our greatness lies in our ability to overcome obstacles and to strike back when necessary. The power resides in our strong unity and our receptiveness to others who are different from us. It is our basic right to live authentically as the person we’re meant to be, and it is our responsibility to care for community… to be cognizant of the ties that bind us to one another.