Un/Settled
Introduction
This installation brings together the work of nine artists who are looking back to the places where they were raised or to locations associated with their cultural identities. Most of these works were made away from home, and they are variously suffused with pride, longing, melancholy, fear, or feelings of dislocation. Some of the artists are more personal in their reflections, while others take on difficult social or political issues.
The exhibition’s title is inspired by the artists’ writings, and especially by the title of Tia Blassingame’s artist’s book Settled: African American Sediment or Constant Middle Passage. The texts on the individual works are the artists’ words. All are graduates of RISD, with the exception of Arghavan Khosravi, who graduates at the end of the spring semester.
Jan Howard