Cira Pascual Marquina does not like the term “curator” for the new exhibit at Baltimore?s Contemporary Museum.
Instead, she describes herself as “the organizer of this exhibition that is socially and politically engaged” at a museum that has “artistic creation which engages the city directly, [setting] us apart from other museums in Baltimore.”
While art often entertains and delights, sometimes it has a more serious purpose. Art may serve as educator, fomenter and force for change, as in the case of “Headquarters: Investigating the Creation of the Ghetto and the Prison Industrial Complex,” on-view-and-involved that is at the Contemporary Museum in the Mount Vernon Cultural District.
“We have invited a number of artist-slash-activists who will work with local organizers to explore social justice issues while connecting with Baltimore?s communities,” Marquina said.
For example, Emily Forman, a Chicago-based artist, “will be creating a space for discussing the issue of surveillance,” Marquina said. “You see the cameras that are throughout the city and pop up in neighborhoods, creating a sense of insecurity rather than security.”
Some of the “exhibits” will actually be off-site.
The Barcelona-based collective, Taller de Costura de Codigo Abierto, will create a mobile kitchen and mobile sewing studio. The museum?s artist collective-in-residence, campbaltimore, “investigates Baltimore?s uneven development” with the “Human Rights City Mobile,” a mobile video unit that will document different initiatives and “function as an organizing club,” Marquina said.
“This is an important theme in the exhibition,” she added, noting the fragmentation that often occurs among organizers who are individually “focused on one thing.
“This mobile unit will go from neighborhood to neighborhood and share what?s happening in one to the next in terms of activism while proposing alternatives.”
Other exhibit participants will include Food Not Bombs (Baltimore chapter of the national organization that serves vegan food in public spaces); Red Emma?s Collective (Baltimore bookstore, information center and coffee shop is a workers? collective run on Anarchist principles); United Workers Association; and Baltimore Free Store (collects donated and salvaged items for distribution throughout Baltimore City neighborhoods).
Within the museum, visitors will see a media room “where different videos, including documentaries and interviews with activists” will be shown in a continuous loop; massive wall-sized blackboards will feature diagrams and planning documents for each activity. A large scale map of Baltimore will indicate where things are happening outside, and a floor diagram, created by Los Angeles-based artist Ashley Hunt, “maps the structural relationship between the state, the war machine, the precarious conditions of the inner city and the prison industrial complex,” Marquina said. During the run of the exhibit, the Contemporary Museum will host a free workshop series, “Examining Social Justice,” at 7 p.m. on Thursdays through July 6. The series will offer skill-shares, discussions and film screenings examining issues of social justice in Baltimore. The Contemporary Museum will be the center of operations ? the headquarters ? for the project?s activities which runs through Aug. 27.
“It?s a long run for an exhibition. And it?s going to be intense,” Marquina said.
If you go
» “Headquarters: Investigating the Creation of the Ghetto and the Prison Industrial Complex” will run through Aug. 27 at the Contemporary Museum, 100 W. Centre St., in the Mount Vernon CulturalDistrict. The museum is open Wednesdays through Sundays noon to 5 p.m. and Thursdays noon to 7 p.m. For more information, call 410-783-5720 or visit www.contemporary.org.
