Common Ground: Artists Reimagining Community

Elizabeth at Fourteen, 2017 Oil on canvas, 36x48”

Curated by Jennifer Vanderpool, Ph.D,

FEBRUARY 24 - APRIL 8, 2022
William Rolland Gallery of Fine Art, California Lutheran University, Thousand Oaks, CA

In-person exhibition will be on view February 24 -April 8, 2022
Virtual exhibit can be found here.

The art world is small and interconnected, but it is sometimes difficult to see the connections. Inspired by mutual aid societies that assist community members in need and employing this as a curatorial strategy, the curator invited ten artists to exhibit who, in turn, each invited an artist who then each asked an artist to participate, and the project continues to grow like a web, as invited artists are inevitably connected to other exhibiting artists.

The work included in Common Ground engages, investigates, and questions the concepts of what “community” was and how we, as a communal society engaged in civil contestation, can reimagine what it can be by addressing the sociopolitical and economic ruptures laid bare by COVID-19 and the BLM movement. Who is empowered to be heard and participate in crafting what makes a happy, healthy, equitable, and socioeconomically thriving community? Art, as a mode of storytelling, can facilitate these conversations. Common Ground: Artists Reimagining Community integrates the participatory strategies of social practice art to organize communities in debate and collaboration with modes of curatorial activism approaches that challenge the assumptions and erasures of voices in hegemonic narratives.

The artists featured in the Common Ground Exhibit include:

April Bey, Arnold Tunstall, Autumn Bland, Badly Licked Bear, Christopher Mason, Christopher Velasco, Deborah Martin, Djones, Jane Callister, Jill Emery, Joshua Cleveland, Joshua Wittenburg, Justin Luis Arroyo, Kia Pooler, Michael Hanson, Tania Jazz Mont, Walpa D’Mark, Xarabyte, Yusef Ferguson, Zameh Omonuwa, Dylan Parsons, Chet Glaze, Lucas Murgida, James Gobel

This exhibit is the cure to your ennui, the medicine for that pressure on your bones that became more tangible as COVID progressed. Fill the void with experimental film, music, comics, paintings, photography, graphic novels, and so much more. Curated by Jennifer Vanderpool, PhD.

View all events related to this exhibition here, with more to come in Spring 2022.