October 6 - December 15, 2023
Opening reception: Friday, October 6, 5 - 8 pm
Institute of Contemporary Art at Maine College of Art & Design
Portland, Maine
By most any measure, the world is becoming less liveable. Climate breakdown undermines ecosystems and ways of living, paralleling crises in social life. These disruptions reflect long-standing patterns rooted in the inseparability of settler-colonialism, anti-blackness, and environmental destruction. Whether under political occupation, psychic pressure, or environmental duress; artists, designers, and filmmakers have long found ways to create in what are otherwise unlivable conditions. Liveable Worlds takes as its point of departure the notion that there are multiple “worlds”— material, psychic, and communal—and opens space to envision new forms of visualization, survival, collaboration, and community.
The artists in Liveable Worlds combine organic materials such as soil, water, and plants, with found materials and technological tools to create sculpture, painting, film, photography, installation, community projects, and performance. Some works in the exhibition combine scientific inquiry, organic systems, and recording practices with speculative imaginaries in order to envision alternate futures. Others conceive of imagination as not simply future-oriented, instead engaging notions of inheritance, ancestral gifts, and legacies of extraction. Seen together, Liveable Worlds focuses on how artists, designers, and community members have long seen environmental disruption as a moment to reimagine and rebuild.
Parallel to the exhibition, the ICA will host events focused on community engagement surrounding environmental justice, on regional and global scales, including a symposium on November 3-4.
Futurefarmers, Sky Hopinka, Athena LaTocha,
Patte Loper, Mary Mattingly, Pamela Moulton/Posey,
Oscar Santillán, Cauleen Smith, Will Wilson
Liveable Worlds is curated by Julie Poitras Santos, Associate Professor of MFA, and Sabine Malcolm, Assistant Professor and Chair of Sustainable Ecosystems in Art & Design at Maine College of Art & Design. Generous support for the exhibition is provided by the Jeremy Moser and Laura Kittle Fund, and by Robert W. Burgess, Jr. and Barbara Rose Burgess.
Image: Cauleen Smith, Pilgrim (still), 2017. Video, color, sound.
Courtesy of the Artist, Morán Morán, and Corbett vs. Dempsey.
Courtesy of the Artist, Morán Morán, and Corbett vs. Dempsey.
Institute of Contemporary Art
Maine College of Art & Design
522 Congress St., Portland, ME
Hours:
Wed–Sun, 11am–5pm
Thursday, 11am–7pm
Maine College of Art & Design
522 Congress St., Portland, ME
Hours:
Wed–Sun, 11am–5pm
Thursday, 11am–7pm