Tuesday, July 20, 2010

Opening Reception for new exhibition this Saturday



Come join us for the opening reception of Presence is Progress - an exhibition of photographs and a celebration of the Americans With Disabilities Act's 20th Anniversary.

Presence is Progress
is a community arts project created by Park McArthur and made possible with a grant from the Town of Chapel Hill's Office of Public Affairs.

"As a group of people whose rights to work, attend school, and participate in civic life were only secured with the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act in 1990, people have been segregated and valued according to mobility for a long time. In addition to legislation that insists on barrier-free infrastructure, it is thanks to improvements in equipment technology and a decrease in the practice of institutionalization that people with disabilities have access to public spaces, in increasingly independent ways. Presence is Progress's mobilizations demonstrate publicly that mobility is not synonymous with walking. Photographs of the mobilizations add to our ideas of what progress looks like."

The opening reception for Presence is Progress will be this Saturday, July 24, 6-8pm. Guest speaker Vicki Smith, Executive Director of Disability Rights North Carolina, will speak at 7pm. A sign language interpreter will be provided.

The exhibition will be on view July 24 - August 7, 2010.

For more information about the project please visit www.presenceisprogress.wordpress.com

*image: Jess Isaiah Levin, Franklin Street, Chapel Hill, March 27th, 2010

Tuesday, July 13, 2010

Opening Reception for a new exhibition of photographs



Join us this Sunday, July 18 3-5 PM for an opening reception for the exhibition Seder.Table, a series of photographs by Galia Gur Zeev.

In this one-person exhibition, artist Galia Gur Zeev presents two series of photographs exploring family gatherings around the dining table, which join together to form a single show. The series Table consists of a wall piece depicting the diners around the table from a bird's-eye view; the series Seder is an elaboration of the former. In both series the table is nonexistent, and the meal did not really take place. In both, the relevant information emerges from the black.

The Passover Seder is one of the most important festive meals in Jewish tradition. This gathering rearranges the family unit each meal anew, demanding "stocktaking" of the family members, a routine, familiar and comforting ritual carried out from one meal to the next. A great deal of tension, excitement, joy and sadness come together in this occasion. The meeting around the table maps out the present and the absent; the change of roles in the soldier family, as well as those aspects which are an integral part of life, such as the figure, which places the family in Israel, reflecting a reality of constant anxiety.

Gur Zeev's photographs address a person's relationships with oneself, one's body, and one's family, portraying a universe centered on the home and family. While she portrays her own family, they always keep a certain distance, looking into the camera lens as if they were signifiers of the general concept of family.

For more information about the artist please visit her website at www.galiagurzeev.com

image: Seder, 2002, Galia Gur Zeev