Off The Beaten Path: Violence, Women and Art
23 October > 12 December 2009
Amnesty International, Laylah Ali, Maimuna Feroze-Nana, Mona Hatoum, Icelandic Love Corporation, Yoko Inoue, International Rescue Committee, Jung JungYeob, Amal Kenawy, Lisa Bjørne Linnert, Hung Liu, Gabriela Morawetz, Miri Nishri, Yoko Ono, Cecilia Paredes, Susan Plum, Cima Rahmankhah, Joyce J. Scott, Jaune Quick-to-See Smith, Masami Teroka, Hank Willis Thomas
For the new exhibition season the University Art Gallery, UC San Diego presents an international exhibition entitled Off The Beaten Path: Violence, Women and Art. The exhibition brings together artists from around the world to explore the global ramifications of gender-based violence. The exhibition, curated by Randy Jayne Rosenberg executive director of Art Works For Change, features twenty-one artists from nineteen countries. “Throughout the world, women and girls are victims of countless and senseless acts of violence. The range of gender-based violence is devastating, occurring, quite literally, from womb to tomb,” explains Randy Jayne Rosenberg. “The stories that underlie these artworks return us imaginatively to the event of violation and allow it to affect us.” Premised on the visionary potential in art, the exhibition avoids tabloid and sensational imagery. The invited artists were asked, “To help us create new representations through their artworks and, in doing so, help us feel and understand the essence of the problem of violence against women,” says Rosenberg.
The exhibition hopes to help create a new conversation on this important topic. The exhibition explores multiple aspects of violence against women and girls organized within several thematic categories: Violence and the Individual; Violence and the Family; Violence and the Community; Violence and Culture; Violence and Politics. The organizers hope the audience leaves the exhibition with a better understanding of the roots of abuse, a feeling of empathy, and an awareness of choice in their actions and beliefs. These problems, though widespread, are often invisible, says Rosenberg. “When we encounter violence against women, we often overlook the facts and experience a sort of blindness. We choose not to see the devastation of domestic violence, calling it ‘a family affair’. Honor-killings of women in faraway regions of the world become nothing more than a ‘cultural difference’. We find it hard to believe that sex trafficking and exploitation occur in our cities, close to home. The rape and torture of women during armed conflict is the inevitable ‘messiness of war’. As such, the political and systemic sources of violence are often underestimated or overlooked.”
The University Art Gallery is partnering with 5 Women Who Care, Amnesty International, Casa Cornelia Law Center, Center for Community Solutions San Diego, Coalition to Abolish Slavery and Trafficking, End Violence Against Women International, License to Freedom, Survivors of Torture, The Voices and Faces Project, United 4 Iran and Women’s Resource Center as well as departments and programs on campus in order to create an extensive calendar of programming. Please check the Talks and Events section of the website for upcoming events.
ABOUT ART WORKS FOR CHANGE
Art Works for Change produces contemporary art exhibitions to address social and environmental. It uses the power of art as a vehicle to promote dialogue and awareness, and to inspire action and thought. Art Works for Change operates under the fiscal umbrella of the Tides Center, a tax-exempt organization.
ABOUT 5 WOMEN WHO CARE
5 Women Who Care is a group of women who came together to help make a difference and bring awareness to women’s and children’s issues globally. Operating out of the San Diego area, these 5 Women collaborate with like minded organizations for the empowerment and justice of women and children worldwide.
In addition to supporting the Off The Beaten Path Project, the organization recently organized the Day of Solidarity Rally in Balboa Park; supports the California arm of the Water for Sudan, and the Voices and Faces project, Volume 1. Long term projects include women and Afghanistan, passage of Jenny’s Law, and support of local domestic abuse shelters that have lost funding.
The gallery will be closed November 11 in observance of Veterans Day and November 26 for Thanksgiving.