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UID:Indybay-18864527
SEQUENCE:19032458
CREATED:20240325T175000Z
DESCRIPTION:UC Santa Cruz’ Institute of the Arts and Sciences, the San José Museum 
 of Art and Barrios Unidos are pleased to announce Seeing Through Stone, a 
 new multi-sited exhibition opening across all three locations this 
 spring.\n\nThe seventy-seven international artists and collectives brought 
 together in Seeing Through Stone, invite viewers to see beyond the current 
 realities of prison, drawing attention to already existing practices of 
 imagining the world otherwise. The exhibition includes sixteen newly 
 commissioned projects, as well as works of video, painting, sculpture, 
 installation, sound and performance. Together, these artists are part of 
 the expanding constellation of abolition—the organizing, activist, 
 dreaming and worldmaking to find solutions to social issues beyond prisons 
 and punishment—that begins with the recognition of a possibility beyond 
 our limited present.\n\nThe exhibition is co-curated by Gina Dent, Lauren 
 Schell Dickens, and Rachel Nelson, as part of Visualizing Abolition, the 
 ongoing series exploring justice, prisons and art, with exhibitions 
 co-organized by the Institute of the Arts and Sciences and San José Museum 
 of Art.\n\nSeeing Through Stone\n\nHe sees through stone\nhe has the secret 
 eyes\nthis old black one\nwho under prison skies\nsits pressed by the 
 sun\nagainst the western wall\nhis pipe between purple gums\n-Etheridge 
 Knight, 1968\n\nPrisons are so ingrained in history and the cultural 
 imagination as to appear inevitable. From current structures of prisons, 
 jails, and immigrant detention centers to past manifestations, such as 
 Native American boarding schools and American chattel slavery, our world is 
 bound together by carceral structures that equate punishment with justice. 
 Yet as long as prisons have existed, alternatives to prison have also 
 flourished. When poet Etheridge Knight (1931–1991) wrote from Indiana 
 State Prison in 1968 of “seeing through stone,” he evoked the secret 
 eyes of those able to see beyond the realities of prison to a world 
 otherwise.\n\nThe eighty-one artists and collectives in Seeing Through 
 Stone see otherwise. Sharing a capacity for radical sight, they include 
 currently and formerly incarcerated artists alongside those without that 
 lived experience from different sociopolitical contexts around the globe. 
 Their projects include supporting creative networks in Guantanamo, 
 educating youth in Rio de Janeiro, and organizing landless farmers in the 
 Philippines, as well as more poetic and conceptual projects engaging an 
 aesthetics of abolition. Their work brings into view a world where people 
 seek safety with, rather than from, one another; where medicine grows from 
 prison manure and land is cultivated for food, not capital; where blue 
 finally means sky.\n\nIn sixteen newly commissioned projects, alongside 
 other works of video, painting, sculpture, installation, sound, and 
 performance, across three exhibition sites, Seeing Through Stone provides a 
 model of hope in practice. The exhibition is a celebration of the expanding 
 constellation of abolition: the organizing, dreaming, world-making, and 
 creative activism around the globe that offers ways to see—and live– 
 differently.\n\nFriday, April 26, 2024\nOpening Celebration: 6–9pm • 
 Member Reception: 6–7pm\nFree admission starting at 6pm\n\nCelebrate the 
 opening of SJMA’s exhibition Seeing Through Stone at SJMA, part of the 
 ongoing Visualizing Abolition series, which brings together artwork that 
 engages with prisons, justice, and freedom to provide a vision and model of 
 abolition in practice. Galleries are open late with local musical acts. 
 Stop by El Cafecito by Mezcal Restaurant for a light bite and cash 
 bar.\n\nRegister Here: 
 https://52102.blackbaudhosting.com/52102/tickets\n\n\nImage: Maria Gaspar, 
 Cloud Out (Suspend), 2023. Archival inkjet print with oil pastel on paper, 
 41 x 75 inches. Image courtesy of the artist. Photo by Clare Britt.\n 
 https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2024/03/25/18864527.php
SUMMARY:Opening Celebration: "Seeing Through Stone" at SJMA
LOCATION:San José Museum of Art (SJMA), 110 S. Market St., San José
URL:https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2024/03/25/18864527.php
DTSTART:20240427T010000Z
DTEND:20240427T040000Z
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