HAPPY TO SEE YOU: Art, Love & Resistance

This community-driven exhibition and workshop experience will run from January 30th through February 14th.

Opening Event: January 30th from 4:00 to  7:00 PM with tabling by local organizations.

Discussions & Workshops:

Closing Event: February 12th from 5:30 to  8:00 PM

How do individuals find connection and community in times of crisis and social instability? Notions of individualism and self-sufficiency deny our fundamental need for relationship, support, and solidarity. How are these needs met in the absence of public spaces that encourage civil discourse and social systems that provide basic resources? Art can be a vehicle to catalyze communities and amplify individual voices to create spaces for democratic assembly. Such supportive communal action can provide hope through relationship to resist oppressive narratives that attempt to erase individuals and communities.

HAPPY TO SEE YOU: Art, Love & Resistance critically considers the gallery as a space historically shaped by colonization and market economies, transforming it into a platform for public discourse and engagement. Over the course of two weeks students, faculty, and community organizers will present artworks inspired by the rich history of protest art and activism. These works provide context for a series of public events, including workshops, presentations, resource sharing, community meals, and activities focused on creative play.

Visual art has long served as a tool for resistance, often synthesizing the complexity of issues into clear revelations that speak to our shared humanity. We have seen that the use of declarative text alongside clear graphic imagery catalyze movements and transform cultural perceptions. Consider the AIDS epidemic of the 1980s, when a group of six individuals in New York City came together to raise awareness of the crisis and the failure of both state and federal governments to recognize its severity. They mobilized through creating a powerful poster with a clear message. A single pink triangle on a black background above the phrase “SILENCE = DEATH.” Covering the city with the posters in only a matter of days, New Yorkers were confronted with the reality of the epidemic and the need for action. During the Memphis sanitation workers' strike of 1968, workers protested unsafe working conditions and low wages, demanding justice in response to the racial discrimination they faced. Supported by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., over 1,300 Black male sanitation workers went on strike, assembling and marching, often wearing signs with a simple phrase in bold black letters: “I AM A MAN.”

Parking information and open hours can be found by visiting the Gittins Gallery page.