Exhibit: Culture Keepers | Culture Makers begins September 1
August 7, 2018
Exhibit: Culture Keepers | Culture Makers
September 1 – 30
Reception: Sunday September 9 | 2 – 4 PM
Visit the library during the month of September for an exhibit of artwork from the Culture Keepers | Culture Makers project with artist Richard Haynes.
This artwork depicts how life could be - without segregation, without bias, without the terrible lack of connection among many of us human beings. The art was created through a class led by artist Richard Haynes, who developed a tracing technique so that anyone, artist or not, could join his trade and express the wish to change our culture. Fourteen people from the Seacoast joined that class, supported by a grant from the NH Charitable Foundation, to learn how artists are, not only culture keepers, but also, culture makers.
Richard Haynes asked his students to imagine their art being uncovered by the people of a future generation. He asked, “What do you want people to discover from your drawing? How will you show them what it was like to be living in a time when we were emerging into a world without racism?”
As a group, they defined "diversity" and "racial unity" and then Kristen Butterfield, discussion leader and UNH Social Justice Educator, asked, “How did you learn bias and prejudice in the first place?” The art students named systems: our families, our schools, our political and social cultures and healthcare – citing all the opportunities given to whites only to succeed and thrive. They asked themselves how we might have colluded with those systems of oppression - or how we confronted them. And, for eight weeks, they talked about their lives, laughed, cried and imagined a better future together.
The Culture Keepers | Culture Makers thank you for viewing their work.
