MFA Thesis Exhibition, April 2015
Night Gallery, Tempe, Arizona
It is believed by many Americans that all people, regardless of the conditions into which they were born, have an equal chance to achieve success. Although stories of extraordinary achievements exist, it is obvious that some people are born at a disadvantage before their individual attributes are even considered.
In the U.S., the physical location in which one exists affects a multitude of life circumstances, i.e. housing opportunities, school districts, accessibility to community amenities such as grocery stores, pharmacies, physicians, and safe recreational facilities. The invisible social constructions and stratification between people become real, physical, and emotionally-damaging barriers.
BETWEEN YOU AND ME is an exhibition that makes visible the invisible barriers between people. It is a constructed environment that requires precarious negotiation of the body through the space. Through the use of familiar materials of wood studs and sheet rock, the exhibition implies interior spaces.
I am interested in the way people interact with each other in a space, especially interpersonally. As social beings, coded verbal language and expressive body language can convey messages clearer than words. Facial expressions can greatly alter the tone and body language can reveal what is left unsaid. These invisible barriers become socially stratifying and tend to affect the immediate environment. How we become politicized bodies in a space both fascinates and disturbs me.
My research is based on power and privilege dynamics, cultural conditioning, and systemic inequality in American history. The specific concepts I find myself returning to are those connected to uneven development of cities and communities that in turn affect the way marginalized people are deemed socially acceptable (or unacceptable) and whether they are worthy of rights.
The title BETWEEN YOU AND ME implies a space of trust between people and in this case, the specificity in which this space was constructed, however ad-hoc, is intentional. The short ceiling, narrow passage, demarcation of attempts to reach . . . and reach higher, are all indices to reorient a viewer’s perspective and awareness of herself (and others) in an institutional space.
How can you freely navigate a space that is designed to someone else’s specificity? What has been built between us? Between you and me, there is an infinite gulf that must be traversed in order to seek some common understanding.
Photography by Peter Bugg
www.peterbugg.com