January 15 - March 3, 2022
“A Welcoming Place by Ariel René Jackson is a film-based exhibition that contemplates what it might look like to forecast the welcoming status of a place. Forecasting, the artist argues, is the product of “taking temperature” which includes gathering individual testimonies throughout an area. These testimonies can be understood as shared collective knowledge and data of warnings and affirmations relative to the history of systemic violence in that place. The exhibition weaves interviews, research, image, video, animation, and sculpture to deliver a poetic visualization of shared knowledge about East Austin.
The weather balloon’s purpose is to carry an instrument called a radiosonde to collect data and send it back. In the exhibition, Jackson uses this balloon as a metaphor for gathered testimonials, a cultural technology to sense and detect the climate of a situation or space. The artist repurposes the term “technology”, drawing meaning from its etymological source, techne, which is Greek for art and craft. The craft in Jackson’s exhibition lies in the generations of skilled observation within black and brown communities, warning each other when sociological danger is near, especially when it isn’t entirely visible. Despite press suggesting Austin to be one of the top locations for black and brown professionals, the city’s historically black and brown community on the east side continues to be affected by gentrification.
Exhibition Dates: January 15th – March 3rd, 2022. “
Closing: March 3, 2022 | 6–8 pm
Women & Their Work (Cesar Chavez)
1311 East Cesar Chavez Street
Austin, 78702 Texas
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