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RECEPTION // FRIDAY // OCTOBER 2 // 6PM to 9PM //
MERCURY CAFE // 201 OCTAVIA // SAN FRANCISCO
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Belonging in Transition is a exhibition examining belonging in epochs of transition both big and small. Whether that transition lasts years as one transitions from youth to adulthood OR comes about quickly from threat of ...
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RECEPTION // FRIDAY // OCTOBER 2 // 6PM to 9PM //
MERCURY CAFE // 201 OCTAVIA // SAN FRANCISCO
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Belonging in Transition is a exhibition examining belonging in epochs of transition both big and small. Whether that transition lasts years as one transitions from youth to adulthood OR comes about quickly from threat of eviction OR becomes mundane as one travels from point A to point B, these transitions become crucial to our understanding and experience of our place in this world.
Four artists -- Rebecca Schultz, Edward Samaniego, Tasha Rodriguez, and Jason Wyman -- approach the subject matter from different mediums (sculpture, photography, painting, and graphic design) and source material (workshops with transitional age youth, portraits of people addressing displacement, interviews on home and migration, and public transit hubs). The result is an exhibition that speaks to the spaces between the physicality of bodies and spaces and the metaphors contained within personal and public stories.
Rebecca Schultz's core sculptural structure made from wooden train tracks evokes nostalgia over childhood toys while simultaneously transforming them into an equally familiar form that honors the origins of the tracks: a tree. Through workshops with transitional age youth, she collected "leaves" that collage their experience as they make a physiological transition. Over the course of the exhibition, more leaves will be added through additional workshops and from viewers reflecting on their own transition from youth to adulthood.
Eddie Samaniego's photographs of Bay Area mass transit are equally nostalgic and unique in their perspective. By skewing horizon lines and playing with pattern, light, and form, Samaniego's photos force the viewer to see the everyday from a different perspective. These familiar spaces suddenly become new.
Tasha Rodriguez's paintings transform photos by youth photographer Miquella Pellum into colorful, vibrant, and playful portraits of people addressing displacement. The original photos were snapped at an interview booth conducted at the Tenant's Rights Bootcamp by the San Francisco Tenant's Union at Mercury Cafe on July 20, 2015. Rodriguez, who was not at the interview booth, colors the portraits through her own lens creating a tapestry that is rich with possibility and interpretation.
Jason Wyman's bright graphic inspirational posters distill whole interviews on belonging, home, and migration into evocative proverbs or short statements of universal truths. The gradating colors are drawn from the same portraits by Miquella Pellom and reduce the speaker of the statement into it most minimal components: their bodies and clothes. Similarly, the words on the poster have been reduced and creatively edited to show the universality of experience contained within everyone's personal stories.
Belonging in Transition is a part of the #WhereDoYouBelong Project. The #WhereDoYouBelong Project started as a wandering inquiry into belonging at a catalytic moment in the San Francisco Bay Area. As it's evolved, it's transformed into a creative and civic investigation of place and people rooted in personal interviews, interdisciplinary practice, and public partnerships. It was founded by 14 Black Poppies and OutLook Theater Project.
Belonging in Transition will be up at the Mercury Cafe, 201 Octavia Street in SF, from October 2 to November 30, 2015. A reception for the artists will be on FRIDAY, October 2 from 6pm to 9pm.