Press Release Archive
IDENTITY EXPRESSION
PRESS RELEASE
Gallery Project
215 South Fourth Avenue
Ann Arbor, MI 48104
www.thegalleryproject.com
734-997-7012
IDENTITY EXPRESSION AT GALLERY PROJECT
Gallery Project presents Identity Expression, a multi-media exhibit featuring 21 local, regional, and national artists who explore issues of personal identity in American culture. Curated by Nicole Parker and Dan Gay, this exhibit runs from Friday, January 5 through Sunday, February 11, 2007. The opening reception is on Friday, January 5, from 6-9.
Identity is linked to racial and cultural heritage, sexual preference and issues of gender, age, and social class. One’s identity is also shaped by early socialization and the enduring force of expectations from family, friends and community.
Some aspects of our identity are constructed for us while other aspects we construct ourselves. Sometimes we quietly hide parts of our identity and other times we loudly project it. People and institutions around us may have rigid ideas about who we are and how we should express ourselves. They often attempt to channel or block personal expression, and even promote their own versions of acceptable and non-acceptable behavior. They go as far as having their own versions of non-conformity. The expression of individual identity is all too often discouraged, misinterpreted, and unrewarded.
By bringing artists together who use art as a means to explore identity, we hope to celebrate and promote self-expression and its diversity. We also wish to create dialogue that speaks to community, acceptance, and the safeguards that are necessary for expressing individual identity in a society dominated by mass media and technology.
Gallery Project is a fine art collaborative. Its mission is to provide a venue for contemporary art that is culturally aware, individualistic, courageous, and thought provoking. Artists representing a diverse range of visual arts curate and participate in its nine annual themed exhibits.
Gallery Project is located at 215 South Fourth Avenue in Ann Arbor. Gallery hours are: Tuesday thru Thursday, noon to 6; Friday and Saturday, noon-9; and Sunday, noon to 4. The gallery is closed on Mondays. For more information, call 734-997-7012 or visit the website at thegalleryproject.com.