31 January – 17 March 2023
Curated by Dr. Beth Hinderliter
Reception: 31 January 2023, 5:30 - 7:30p, Roundtable conversation with Kosmolgym, Dr. Alan Braddock and Dr. Beth Hinderliter on art and ecology starts at 6:00p
The Duke Hall Gallery of Fine Art at James Madison University announces the opening of its new exhibition, Both Sides of the River (1/31/2023 - 3/28/2023). Drawing on the importance of river ecologies as corridors that connect vast and biodiverse spaces, this exhibition seeks to develop new forms of "river literacy" (da Cunha, 2019). Increasingly, rivers around the world are gaining legal status that recognizes their bio-cultural rights to be free from pollution, riverbank deforestation, and other destruction imposed by the forces of capitalist extractivism. These rights, hard-won by many indigenous communities and activists for whom these rivers are sacred, can only be fulfilled if new political and cultural systems arise to sustain them. The artists presented in this exhibition challenge us with new creative ecologies and new vistas to future sustaining relationships.
Participants in Both Sides of the River include Colombian artist Carolina Caycedo, French artist Sara Favriau, French-Colombian artist Marcos Avila Forero, US American artist Mary Mattingly, and the international art and game design collective Kosmologym. They address issues of our current climate crisis via approaches informed by decolonial ecology, the environmental humanities, and the wisdom of First Nations' careful stewardship of the environment.
From the gundalow boat created by Kosmologym which literally places our feet in the banks of the Shenandoah river to the tradition of water drumming presented by Marco Avila Forero, we are immersed in river worlds that invite our protection, transformation, and imagination. As both liquid and land, rivers are spaces of transition and metaphors for a just transition away from racial capitalist and extractive colonialism. Together, these artists craft a river literacy needed to build new worlds beyond the climate crisis deemed inevitable by our current social and political systems.