Compass - Navigating the Journey to Self-Identity

This internationally curated exhibition includes artists who are participating in an internal and external dialog about themselves, others, and how they have navigated their lives within the communities in which they live. Although the artists are employing a broad range of styles and media, many are addressing the act of societal labeling, by appropriating and using these stereotypes and slurs. And, often moving beyond the motivations or historic use of these terms, artists are bravely participating in a re-contextualization of these terms. In many ways this appropriation of language may be evaluated as a reversal of power by those who have been marginalized or othered. As participants in this larger dialog, artists are redefining often painful language into a language that serves a growing range of purposes such as intentionality, awareness, humor, emotional armor or as a broad claim to power.