Post-it 005: to hold a we

opens tomorrow at BRIC!

I’m so thrilled to share to hold a we, which opens tomorrow at BRIC and features new and recent work by fourteen incredible artists and collectives. It is a milestone part of a larger Disability Justice initiative which included the 2023-24 cohort of the BRIClab Contemporary Art Residency Program and will conclude with a hybrid gathering this December.

I am so grateful for each of these artists, many of whom I’ve called friends, collaborators, and and roommates for years now—a balm in the face of genocide and grief, and a source of grounding despite the many limitations of institutions. Artists will continue to demonstrate expansive models for making and living—vital for all of our we’s.

[ID: A digital drawing by Pelenakeke Brown with text that reads 'did you make it to the studio today?' a corresponding text drawn like a squiggly line so sometimes that text overlaps itself reads 'no, yes, no no no, yes, leai (no in Samoan), kao (no in Maori), I tried, I tried, I really did, I tried, I tired, I tired, tired, tired, tried, tired, tomorrow? maybe tomorrow? maybe, maybe, are you going? are you going? are you going? no, no, no.' The text is sometimes legible, sometimes not, a few words in bold and it follows a haphazard squiggly line down the page. There are other lines in purple that overlap and some dots. Text beside the digital drawing reads: to hold a we, BRIC House Gallery & Project Room, Opening Reception Wed, Sept 18 at 7PM, On view through Dec. 22, 2024 with BRIC's logo.]

I’d love to see you at the (masked required!) reception tomorrow—which includes a performance by CAO Collective—if not let me know and I’d love to go together soon. (More information below, and more reflections forthcoming.)

With care,

d

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Honoring the many interconnected relationships that facilitate making and being, to hold a we features newly commissioned and recent work by fourteen emerging and early-career disabled artists and collectives from the BRIClab residency program. Across drawing, text, sculpture, video, photography, installation, and performance, the artists continually turn to memory, intimacy, grief, and the archive as both a source of inspiration and a means of connection. 

The exhibition, co-organized with the artists, borrows its title from “SCORE FOR LIFT AND TRANSFER” (2013) by Constantina Zavitsanos and Park McArthur, conjuring ongoing legacies of collaboration, care, and interdependence within disability communities. The titular we counters the everyday, ever-present risk and reality of isolation, neglect, and erasure, and reflects the plurality of the artistic, curatorial, and community processes that made the exhibition (and its related programming) possible.

to hold a we is rooted in the ten principles of Disability Justice, penned by Patty Berne, Mia Mingus, Stacey Milbern, and fellow Sins Invalid activists. Through these principles – including intersectionality, wholeness, cross-movement organizing, cross-disability solidarity, and collective liberation – the exhibition poses kinship, abundance, tenderness, and trust as alternatives to structural inaccessibility, exploitation, and violences.

to hold a we is organized by Maria McCarthy, Curatorial Associate and danilo machado, Co-Curator with A. Sef, Alex Dolores Salerno, Brothers Sick (Ezra and Noah Benus), Chinese Artists and Organizers (CAO) Collective 离离草, Cinthya Santos Briones, Dominic Bradley, Finnegan Shannon, Isabella Vargas, Linda Ryan, OlaRonke Akinmowo, Pelenakeke Brown, Steven Anthony Johnson II, and Yasi Ghanbari.