Manifesto: A Moderate Proposal
Curated by Ciara Ennis and Jennifer Vanderpool
Evan Hynes
Brain Storming (2017)
Pencil on paper
13 7/8 x 8 3/4 in.
Joe Zaldivar
Scoring Social Justice Points (2017)
Pencil and paper drawing
8 3/4 x 13 7/8 in.
Patrick Dwyre
Possibilities (2017)
Pencil and maker on paper
Dimensions variables
Katie Mendeza
Animals and Humans Escape from Technology (2017)
Pastel and pen drawing
18 1/4 x 24 1/2 in.
ART IS ART (2018), Printer paper, 8.5 x 11 in. (3 sheets)
A do-it-yourself kit for constructing a post-modern manifesto that places your own art practice either in alignment with or in opposition to short excerpts of text that provide trenchant thoughts on the ontological and epistemological status of art drawn from pre-post-modern “authorities. ” Consistency in construction is possible but not necessarily a virtue.
Manifesto of the Utopian Union of Unemployed People (2017)
Typed documents
11 x 8 ½ in.
Gluklya – Manifesto of the Utopian Union of Unemployed People
The Smallist Manifesto (2018)
Typed document with magnifying glass
6 1/2 x 2 ½ in.
I have been exploring levels of communication and understanding in and between non-human animals and human observers. Each animal, including the human, experiences the world in a different way due to the particulars of its body, its senses, its adaptive programming, and really every part of its make-up. This experiential whole has been dubbed the umwelt of a particular animal. Part of the umwelt is a sensitivity to particular signals that are meaningful to the animal, often from members of the same species. Ants are very attuned to the chemical trails of their fellows. Songbirds are listening for the songs of their rivals. Humans glean great information about others’ internal states from facial expressions. The world is a cacophony of signals, most essentially invisible to us. Arguably, part of the human umwelt is the application of extra meaning and narrative, especially anthropomorphic narrative, on the activities of other animals that we do perceive.
We are the Revolution
We take the tools used against us
and disarm them through our actions
We use the space
that harmful history took
to make Our marks
and We don’t stop marking
where we’ve been erased
marking
Our place
We see ourselves where we should
Everywhere
as large as the life We Create
as strong as can Be
in history
Now & as far as our imaginations can carry Us
We are the Revolution, drawn/painted manifesto and words inspired by the activist/student/hero Takiyah Thompson who was instrumental in taking down a Confederate monument in North Carolina in 2017.
“I worry that the word patriarchy makes people’s eyes glaze over with the assumption that it means ‘Men are bad, and we need to change to a matriarchy.’ Of course, given all the ways we’re now learning women differ from men, a brief dose of matriarchy might not be the worst thing: a course correction to restore some balance…
But this is not about replacing one ‘-archy’ with another, it’s about transforming social and cultural norms and institutions so that power, violence, and greed are not the primary operating principles. It’s not about moving from patriarchy to matriarchy, but from patriarchy to democracy. Feminism means real democracy. There’s no road map to get there. It hasn’t happened yet. Women and men of conscience have never had a chance thus far to make our revolution.”
Jane Fonda, LENNY online, March 23, 2016
