The Last Weekend for The Politics of _______.

The last days for PRESS’ first Call for Entry exhibit, The Politics of _______, is this weekend, September 20th-22nd. It is a great exhibit and there are some really standout pieces.

Kent Marske and Nanette Wylde’s Occupy disk is a response to the Occupy Wallstreet movement. It signifies that the Occupy movement shouldn’t advocate for social and economical change, but that we must become better citizens by “occupying” internal and external factors, for example “occupy diversity,” “occupy ecology,” and “occupy consequences.”

Nanette Wylde also loaned us On Judgment: Her accordion book is for the project An Inventory of Al-Mutanabbi Street, which is a project part of the Al-Mutanabbi Street Coalition. The Al-Mutanabbi Street Coalition is an artistic response to the March 2007 bombing of the Al-Mutanabbi district in Baghdad, which is was a cultural and intellectual hub of the city. On Judgment questions what exactly makes a bully. Are bullies born bullies, or are bullies victims. Are they just fighting the many binaries in the world (us/ them, honor/ shame, recognition/ obscurity?)

Margo Lemieux gave us two exceptional pieces that question territory, particularly territory that belongs to animals until humans start making claims. Her tunnel book, The Politics of the Back Yard, suggests that dogs, man’s best friend, may think that it is in charge of the nature. Still, the dog’s place belongs in the house, while the deer, the skunk, and the birds run have free reign. Her striking poster, The Politics of Greed, showcases a gorilla tied up with the date “22 July, 2007” embossed into the poster. On that date, the patriarch of a gorilla family in the Virunga Reservation in Congo, which was the start of two month killing of gorillas in the park. The poster is a sad, harrowing display of the pain that humans transfer to nature.