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Debra Disman

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"Building Networks of Empathy"

Darkness and Empathy

December 23, 2020 By Debra Disman

A two part exhibition at 18th Street Arts Center  explores artists’ reactions to the pandemic and document their experience of it, while offering coping mechanisims and beacons of hope. I have been honored to participate.

FACING DARKNESS
July 27, 2020 – June 30, 2021
Online

The role of the artist is exactly the same as the role of the lover. If I love you, I have to make you conscious of the things you don’t see.
– James Baldwin

“Art’s role in healing trauma, restoring a sense of self, and bringing together a community has led us to realize how artists are our second responders. Artmaking is a necessary part of life, and core to processing, expressing, reckoning, and healing. In a time of worldwide heartbreak, we are recognizing our interconnectedness to one another, and creation of art is one way we deepen our empathic networks. The selected works by these artists engage with worldwide feelings of darkness and loss, using art as a path to communal processing and healing.”

Collective – “The only way out is through”


“Hopes and Fears and…”, 2020. Textile samples and linen thread. 24.5” x 16.5”. Courtesy of the artist.

“Hopes and Fears and…” describes a state where the mind obsessively repeats what it fears, cloaked in the mantle of hope. Such a process is a way of dealing with darkness. Are not hope and fear intrinsically linked as two sides of the same coin? We fear, then we hope that the realization of our fears does not manifest. All the hopes and fears stitched into this work are born of the state of our world, planet, society, and culture, and are voiced by many across the globe. This piece gives voice to those voices as well as my own.

BUILDING NETWORKS OF EMAPTHY
October 26, 2020 – December 15, 2020

The exhibition Building Networks of Empathy is the second of a two-part show that asks us to consider the ways in which art empowers not only the artist, but its viewers to transform their most difficult experiences into enlightened outcomes. The first part of the show is an ongoing online-only exhibition entitled Facing Darkness, which encouraged artists in our community to reflect internally on our current moment of pandemic, isolation, and structural inequity laid bare.

For this second part, which will be physically installed in 18th Street Arts Center’s spacious Airport campus hangar galleries, artists were asked to respond to how they have changed as a result of their inner reflections on darkness, and to imagine new futures and societal structures as we see our way out of crisis. Each artist grapples as well with the role that art can play in social reflection, expression, and cultural paradigm shifts as a result of a deeper understanding of each other, and the empathy that follows. The exhibition sees empathy not only as a way to share and understand what others are going through, but also as a natural and endless resource that we can all rely on when crisis and emergency hit, with hopes that we can turn this moment of collective fear into a sublime experience.

Visit the 360 tour of the exhibition, created by Dollhouse here

“Chromatic Interactions: The Golden Thread”, 2020. File cards, pencils, crayons, thread. Installation. 76 x 90 inches. Photo by Debra Disman. Courtesy of the artist.

I was commissioned to create an interactive book for Craft Contemporary’s 2017 exhibition, Chapters: Book Arts in Southern California, which opened shortly after the 2016 presidential election. Visitors could choose file cards in an array of colors, draw and write on them, and insert them into the pocketed pages of the book. A range of feelings, responses, and concerns were expressed through the cards, which the Museum Staff saved and gave to me at the end of the show. I stitched them together grouped loosely by theme, to express the network of empathy they depicted, held together by golden thread.

Filed Under: ARTISTS, Exhibitions Tagged With: "Building Networks of Empathy", "Chromatic Interactions: The Golden Thread", "Facing Darkness" exhbition, "Hopes and Fears and...", 18th Street Arts Center, 18th Street Arts Center exhbitions, Art during the Pnademic, Art exhbitions in the time of pandemic, Exhbitions, Facing Darkness

“Building Networks of Empathy”

October 23, 2020 By Debra Disman

I am honored to participate in:

“Building Networks of Empathy”

at the Airport Gallery of 18th Street Arts Center in Santa Monica, CA

October 26  – December 15, 2020 

The exhibition Building Networks of Empathy is the second of a two-part show that asks us to consider the ways in which art empowers not only the artist, but its viewers to transform their most difficult experiences into enlightened outcomes. The first part of the show is an ongoing online-only exhibition entitled Facing Darkness, which encouraged artists in our community to reflect internally on our current moment of pandemic, isolation, and structural inequity laid bare.

For this second part, which will be physically installed in 18th Street Arts Center’s spacious Airport campus hangar galleries, artists were asked to respond to how they have changed as a result of their inner reflections on darkness, and to imagine new futures and societal structures as we see our way out of crisis. Each artist grapples as well with the role that art can play in social reflection, expression, and cultural paradigm shifts as a result of a deeper understanding of each other, and the empathy that follows. The exhibition sees empathy not only as a way to share and understand what others are going through, but also as a natural and endless resource that we can all rely on when crisis and emergency hit, with hopes that we can turn this moment of collective fear into a sublime experience.

Debra Disman, Chromatic Interactions: The Golden Thread, 2020. File cards, pencils, crayons, thread. Installation. 76 x 90 inches. Photo by Debra Disman. Courtesy of the artist.
Debra Disman, Chromatic Interactions: The Golden Thread, 2020. File cards, pencils, crayons, thread. Installation. 76 x 90 inches.
Photo by Debra Disman. Courtesy of the artist.

“I was commissioned to create an interactive book for Craft Contemporary’s 2017 exhibition, Chapters: Book Arts in Southern California, which opened shortly after the 2016 presidential election. Visitors could choose file cards in an array of colors, draw and write on them, and insert them into the pocketed pages of the book. A range of feelings, responses, and concerns were expressed through the cards, which the Museum Staff saved and gave to me at the end of the show. I stitched them together grouped loosely by theme, to express the network of empathy they depicted, held together by golden thread.”

This exhibition may be viewed by appointment only. Please visit here to sign up to visit the exhibition!

Participating artists include: Alexandra Dillon, Deborah Lynn Irmas, Luigia Gio Martelloni, Rebecca Setareh, M Susan Broussard, Julia Michelle Dawson, Lionel Popkin, Ameeta Nanji, Siru Wen, Elham Sagharchi, Debra Disman, Luciana Abait, Sheila Karbassian, Daniela Schweitzer, Joan Wulf, Loren Harris-Heller, Nung-Hsin Hu, and Susie McKay Krieser.

The exhibition will be accompanied by a live Zoom panel featuring Alma Ruiz and Karen Sherman, moderated by Paul Bonin-Rodriguez, on November 12, 2020 at 12pm. For this panel discussion, curators, artists, activists, advocates, and scholars are invited to meet virtually  to reflect on the public opening of Facing Darkness, and consider how the show renders a public crisis and artists’ circumstances evident and knowable. Moderated by artist-scholar Paul Bonin-Rodriguez, with talks by curator Alma Ruiz and dancemaker Karen Sherman, (Inter)facing Darkness will frame a dialogue on how artists are operating as second responders, as thought leaders, and resource gatherers at this time. Participants will be invited to speak on their experience of the show at this moment. Register here.

Filed Under: ARTISTS, Exhibitions, New Work, Presentations, Work Tagged With: "Building Networks of Empathy", 18th Street Airport Gallery, 18th Street Arts Center, Alexandra Dillon, Alma Ruiz, Ameeta Nanji, and Susie McKay Krieser., Art and Empathy, Art in the time of Covid, Artists, Artists Respond, Artists Respond to Pandemic, Daniela Schweitzer, Deborah Lynn Irmas, Debra Disman, Elham Sagharchi, Frida Cano, Group Show, Joan Wulf, Julia Michelle Dawson, Karen Sherman, Lionel Popkin, Loren Harris-Heller, Luciana Abait, Luigia Gio Martelloni, M Susan Broussard, Nung-Hsin Hu, Online Exhibition, Paul Bonon-Rodriguez, Rebecca Setareh, Response to Pandemic, Sheila Karbassian, Siru Wen

“Building Networks of Empathy”

October 10, 2020 By Debra Disman

The exhibition Building Networks of Empathy is the second of a two-part show that asks us to consider the ways in which art empowers not only the artist, but its viewers to transform their most difficult experiences into enlightened outcomes. The first part of the show is an ongoing online-only exhibition entitled Facing Darkness, which encouraged artists in our community to reflect internally on our current moment of pandemic, isolation, and structural inequity laid bare.

For this second part, which will be physically installed in 18th Street Arts Center’s spacious Airport campus hangar galleries, artists were asked to respond to how they have changed as a result of their inner reflections on darkness, and to imagine new futures and societal structures as we see our way out of crisis. Each artist grapples as well with the role that art can play in social reflection, expression, and cultural paradigm shifts as a result of a deeper understanding of each other, and the empathy that follows. The exhibition sees empathy not only as a way to share and understand what others are going through, but also as a natural and endless resource that we can all rely on when crisis and emergency hit, with hopes that we can turn this moment of collective fear into a sublime experience.

Debra Disman, Chromatic Interactions: The Golden Thread, 2020. File cards, pencils, crayons, thread. Installation. 76 x 90 inches. Photo by Debra Disman. Courtesy of the artist.
Debra Disman, Chromatic Interactions: The Golden Thread, 2020. File cards, pencils, crayons, thread. Installation. 76 x 90 inches.
Photo by Debra Disman. Courtesy of the artist.

“I was commissioned to create an interactive book for Craft Contemporary’s 2017 exhibition, Chapters: Book Arts in Southern California, which opened shortly after the 2016 presidential election. Visitors could choose file cards in an array of colors, draw and write on them, and insert them into the pocketed pages of the book. A range of feelings, responses, and concerns were expressed through the cards, which the Museum Staff saved and gave to me at the end of the show. I stitched them together grouped loosely by theme, to express the network of empathy they depicted, held together by golden thread.”

This exhibition may be viewed by appointment only. Please visit here to sign up to visit the exhibition!

Participating artists include: Alexandra Dillon, Deborah Lynn Irmas, Luigia Gio Martelloni, Rebecca Setareh, M Susan Broussard, Julia Michelle Dawson, Lionel Popkin, Ameeta Nanji, Siru Wen, Elham Sagharchi, Debra Disman, Luciana Abait, Sheila Karbassian, Daniela Schweitzer, Joan Wulf, Loren Harris-Heller, Nung-Hsin Hu, and Susie McKay Krieser.

The exhibition will be accompanied by a live Zoom panel featuring Alma Ruiz and Karen Sherman, moderated by Paul Bonin-Rodriguez, on November 12, 2020 at 12pm. For this panel discussion, curators, artists, activists, advocates, and scholars are invited to meet virtually  to reflect on the public opening of Facing Darkness, and consider how the show renders a public crisis and artists’ circumstances evident and knowable. Moderated by artist-scholar Paul Bonin-Rodriguez, with talks by curator Alma Ruiz and dancemaker Karen Sherman, (Inter)facing Darkness will frame a dialogue on how artists are operating as second responders, as thought leaders, and resource gatherers at this time. Participants will be invited to speak on their experience of the show at this moment. Register here.

Tagged With: "Building Networks of Empathy", 18th Street Airport Gallery, 18th Street Arts Center, Art, Art in the time of Covid, Artists, Artists Respond to Pandemic, Group Show, Online Exhibition, Response to Pandemic

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