PUTNEY — A new exhibit in The Fine Arts Gallery at Landmark College explores issues of social justice and injustice through the multimedia works of Lani Asunción, Nima Nikakhlagh, Vick Quezada, and William Ransom.
Curated by Landmark College Associate Professor of Arts Samuel Rowlett, “In the Course of Human Events” will be on display through Friday, April 21, in the Fine Arts Gallery, which is open to the public daily from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.
Rowlett says the exhibition title, taken from the first line of the Declaration of Independence, offers a reminder of the deeply human complexities, tragedies, and hypocrisies inherent in the ongoing formation of our “more perfect union.”
“Gallery visitors will see themes related to human rights, socio-political critique and protest, and the lived experiences of artists and people where culture and society intersect,” says Rowlett.
Asunción (they/she) is an interdisciplinary multimedia artist creating socially engaged art in both private and public spaces, independently and collaboratively. According to the artist's website, Asunción's art “weaves together a visual language guided by historical research, community engagement, and experimental performance connected to their identity as a queer multiracial Filipinx-American.”
Asunción integrates new media technologies and transmedia storytelling through ritualized performance to promote healing in the face of cultural violence, oppression, and ancestral intergenerational trauma narratives. Find out more at laniasuncion.com/about.
Nikakhlagh is a multidisciplinary artist, native to Iran, who arrived in the United States in 2014. Often using interactive live performance and the written word, his practice concerns itself with socio-political power dynamics, political resistance, and non-violent action approached in a poetic manner. “I choose to use my body as both subject and object in the work, as a catalyst for action, and generator of potential outcomes,” the artist says on his website. More about his work can be found at nimanikakhlagh.com.
Quezada (they/them) is an interdisciplinary artist who explores hybrid forms in Indigenous-Latinx history and the function of these histories in contested lands, primarily along the U.S.-Mexico border. Quezada categorically is a Rascuache Chicanx artist, one who repurposes and stylizes found objects. Their work explores liberation through an approach that is rooted in queer and Aztec Indigenous knowledge, histories, and aesthetics. Learn more at vickquezada.com/about.html.
Ransom was born and raised on a Vermont dairy farm as the son of a white father and African American mother. He says balance has always played an important role in his life and work, including the balance between Black and white. Ransom's work often suggests “flux, movement, things in a state of becoming or diminishing - a transitory provisional state, rife with an inherent unease and uncertainty,” say organizers.
His material is described as presenting the tensions and underlying instabilities and stresses of the world's current state and the potential for flare-up or collapse. More information can be found at williamransom.art.
The Landmark College Fine Arts Gallery is in the Fine Arts Building on the Landmark College campus. For directions and a campus map, visit landmark.edu and click the “Map and Directions” link at the bottom of the page.