Everyday Everyday Everyday Freedoms

The Maryland Institute College of Art and the For Freedoms 50 State Initiative present Everyday, Everyday, Everyday, Everyday Freedoms, an exhibition that reimagines civic engagement beyond voting in elections. This group exhibition considers how a democracy could be free from disenfranchisement; forming a critique of the frayed political climate from a multiplicity of perspectives. Featuring local, national, and international artists at all stages of their careers, their artwork frames participation and activism through photography, video, game design, sculpture, installation, data visualization, text, and textiles. 

Citizenship, race, gender, age, and socioeconomic class exacerbate the inability of some to survive, let alone to engage civically. Beyond critiquing these systemic barriers, the curators prioritize art’s ability to change perspectives through dialogue, collaboration, and social engagement. They imagine freedom as a release from partisan ideology and encourage the viewer to consider civic engagement as an ongoing daily practice—one that is malleable and ripe for redefinition. 

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About the 50 State Initiative 

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Since 2016, For Freedoms has produced special exhibitions, town hall meetings, billboards, and lawn sign installations to spur greater participation in civic life. In 2018, For Freedoms launched its 50 State Initiative, a new phase of programming to encourage broad participation and inspire conversation around the recent midterm elections. Building off of the existing artistic infrastructure in the United States, For Freedoms has developed a network of over 300 artists and 200 institutional partners who will produce nationwide public art installations, exhibitions and local community dialogues in order to inject nuanced, artistic thinking into public discourse. Centered around the vital work of artists, For Freedoms hopes that these exhibitions and related projects will model how arts institutions can become civic forums for action and discussion of values, place, and patriotism. 

 

Everyday, Everyday, Everyday, Everyday Freedoms is organized by the Curatorial Practice MFA Class of 2020—Andre Bradley, Rodrigo Carazas Portal, Hannah Davis, Ashley He, Imani Haynes, Sung-ah Kang, Eva Sailly, Nathalie von Veh, Minwen Wang, Tiffany Ward, and Aden Weisel; under the direction of José Ruiz, Director of Curatorial Practice, and Gerald Ross, Director of Exhibitions 

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Public Programs 

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Identity Flag Workshop with Maria Paula Moreno 

January 28 | 5-7pm 

Fred Lazarus IV Center, 131 W. North Ave. 

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Making Good: Big Questions in Art and Design with Coco Fusco and Kirsten Leenaars 

March 7 | 7pm 

Falvey Hall, 1301 W. Mt. Royal Ave. 

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Monday-Freedoms Featuring Devin Allen, Hank Willis Thomas and Bilphena Yahwon 

Moderated by Tiffany Ward 

March 13 | 7pm 

Fred Lazarus IV Center, 131 W. North Ave. 

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Featured Artists

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Devin Allen (b. 1989, Baltimore, MD) is a documentary photographer who takes his city as his subject. He rose to national attention when one of his photographs of the Baltimore Uprising was published on the cover of Time in May 2015. While Allen’s photography historicizes Baltimore, his educational programs are dedicated to empowering young people with cameras so they can tell their stories. 

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Featured Works | I Am not a Threat | Untitled | Less Talk | Celebration of Hope, 2015, archival pigment print on photomural fabric, 28 x 42 in. each; Untitled, 2015, archival pigment print on photomural fabric, 103.25 x 151 in. 

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Aram Han Sifuentes (b. 1986, South Korea) is a fiber, social practice, and performance artist who works to claim spaces for immigrant and disenfranchised communities. She is based in Chicago, where the Jane Addams Hull- House Museum exhibited her 2016 project The Official Unofficial Voting Station, which welcomed everyone— particularly the disenfranchised—to vote at stations across the U.S. and Mexico. Her current series of work promotes knowledge of constitutional rights, regardless of immigration status, and creates protective spaces from authorities. 

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Featured Work | Message to the Authorities (Go Away!), 2018, felt and fusible web on household curtains, diptych: 57 x 96 in. each 

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Kirsten Leenaars (b. 1976, Netherlands) is an experimental documentary maker who engages with individuals and communities to create participatory video and performance work. She is based in Chicago, but recently completed a three-year project in Milwaukee, culminating in a solo exhibition at the Haggerty Museum of Art. (Re)Housing the American Dream was a collaboration with refugee and native-born youth that oscillates between fiction and documentation, reinterprets personal stories, highlights shared humanity through humor and play, and reimagines everyday realities through staging, improvisation, and iteration. 

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Featured Work | (Re)Housing the American Dream: A Message from the Future, 2017, three-channel video, 13:42 min. 

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Erick Medel (b.1992, Mexico) is an interdisciplinary artist who combines sculpture, photography, and ceramics with consumer objects to explore national iconography. In 2018, Medel completed his MFA at RISD and has been exhibiting his work in group shows across the U.S. and Canada. Through transformations in materials and form, he engages in a dialogue about the customization of identity and the power of consumer culture, habits, and symbolism of polarized ideologies in the U.S. 

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Featured Work | Americans Only Pop-up Gallery, 2018, Ford F150 pick-up truck bed, 50 hand-made flags, UV prints on plexiglass and vinyl, rivets, laser cut keychains, stoneware, zines, patches, steel, wood, hardware, and mixed media 

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María Paula Moreno (b. 1992, Colombia) focuses her research on sociopolitical issues that materialize across the public and private spheres. Her work Individual Flags has been exhibited at ARTBO 2017 in Bogotá, Colombia and in her 2018 solo exhibition at Harborview and Pole in San Pedro, California. Created through participatory actions, these flags frame the intimate world of the individual using the same visual language as the official flags that represent nations. 

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Featured Works | Banderas para individuos (Flags for Individuals), 2016/2019, satin, wooden dowels, flagpole brackets, and framed certificates, dimensions variable 

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Alessandra Plaza Saravia (b. 1984, Perú) integrates art and technology to create socially engaged installations and software as tools to access knowledge and to make space to discuss sociopolitical conflicts. She is currently pursuing a master’s degree in Berlin, Germany and has recently exhibited across South America. Her video game, Body Invaders, uses play to call attention to the restrictions—from government, religion, and media—that women face on their bodily autonomy. 

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Featured Work | Body Invaders, 2017–18, Flash videogame, 8-bit music, and electronics, dimensions variable 

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Bilphena Yahwon (b. 1994, Liberia) is a Baltimore-based writer, researcher, organizer, and womanist. She is also ¼ of Press Press, an interdisciplinary publishing practice organized to shift and deepen the understanding of voices, identities, and narratives. Her work uses a womanist approach and centers women’s health and well-being, transformative/restorative justice, and intersectionality. 

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Featured Work | Why do all the Black girls have an attitude?, 2019, laser print on sintra, 60 x 120 in. Concept/Data: Bilphena Yahwon; Research Support: Imani Haynes, Eva Sailly, and Tiffany Ward; Design: Sophia Gach-Rasool 

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Meyerhoff Gallery 

MICA, Fox Building 

1303 West Mount Royal Ave. 

Baltimore, MD 21217 

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