The Art of Resistance

This exhibition round includes works provided by organizer Kerrigan Casey which will be on view in the Third Floor East Gallery from July 31 – September 28, 2024.  Lowe Mill A&E invites patrons and art lovers to join us for Open Studio Night, a building-wide experience when our over 150 studios will be open to the public.  The evening also includes receptions for all seven of our gallery spaces. This series gives the public a chance to meet and interact with visiting artists and discuss their work as it is on display and available for purchase. Come out, enjoy a pleasant evening, and maybe you’ll find that special piece of art that speaks to you!  The Open Studio Night reception is Saturday, September 28 from 5-7 pm.

 

About the exhibit:

This project, a collaborative effort among Black artists based in Alabama, transforms archival documents from Alabama’s death row into a traveling multi-and mixed media art exhibit. Centering visual and audio artifacts from people on death row as well as their surviving loved ones, the exhibit focuses on various forms of resistance to capital punishment in the state that sentences more people to death per capita than any other.

Our work allows us to bring a community of artists together to collaborate with people on death row and members of the community to show a different reflection of how people on death row are treated and represented. We want all of us to have the opportunity to create art but this project allows us to create change over time with relationship-building and learning together how we can transform public opinion and eventually state legislation. Community-based artmaking is important because that is the core in developing social change. We model how we want to come together to build on common concerns and shared interests.

The project works toward healing, equity, and racial justice by highlighting the ways in which the current system disrupts, harms, and traumatizes communities, particularly communities of color. It relies on abolitionist frameworks as well as participatory action frameworks that involve and center communities who are most impacted by a social problem. It also relies on a framework of mutual aid through which people come together to share their talents and resources to work toward greater social and political change. In this case, artists are offering their talents, and those impacted by the death penalty are offering their experiences and artifacts, to work toward abolition together.

 

About the organizer:

Kerrigan Casey is a Florence, Alabama native, artist, community organizer, and a trailblazer in the realm of socially-engaged art. The cultural barriers  she faced as a black woman growing  up in the rural south have fostered the deep connection she has with her art, which centers black culture, relationship-building, and community power.  She works as an independent artist as well as a  project manager, developing art installations that create impactful conversations about race, policy, and systemic inequity. This exhibit centers visual and audio artifacts from people on death row as well as their surviving loved ones, the exhibit focuses on various forms of resistance to capital punishment in the state that sentences more people to death per capita than any other state.

To find the the gallery in Lowe Mill A&E, click MORE INFO below (Tickets are NOT required.)