GRADUAL ASCENT | ARTISTS’ COMMENTS

Quotes have been lightly edited for clarity and length.

I loved participating in this project because I was able to approach my photography in a way that meant getting out of my comfort zone, by pairing my images with words.  It was lovely to take the time each day to find a moment of contemplation, away from my regular routine.

- Silvana Agostoni

I imagined what the essence of a safe space resembles for each of us. If calm was invited into a space, how would she walk in to greet the unsettled bodies and wandering minds?  In time, the story that needed to be shared turned into the feelings that needed to formulate themselves. May it be the scent of my mother's favorite cuud (Somali fragrance), the sight of my sisters falling asleep after a long day, or may it be the pulsing of the sun on my skin on better days. This was a safe space for me, where there were no demands on my attention but just the stillness of mind.

- Khadija Charif

I loved this project; it was a great experience! Having to create content on how I was feeling that day/week really challenged me as an artist to dig deeper within me. I approached it as it came. By doing that, I realized a lot of the art I was creating had to do with identity, life, and death.

- Andrés Pérez

As photography is frequently a solitary endeavor, this project has been unique in a number of ways. First, I was working in a relationship--photographing with my son, as we walked through our neighborhood. Then, as my work entered into dialogue with that of other artists, each responding in our own ways to the current moment, I felt a sense of solidarity and shared experience. Though apart, and despite our distance, there was still a connection.

- Andy Richter

"Part of why I loved this project so much is being able to explore various types of queer relationships and how each relationship navigated conversations relating to community, connection and race."

- Diana Albrecht

The experience was meaningful. After being separated from community for so long, it was an honor to be able to spend time with relatives and to hear about their relationships with unči maka (mother earth). My hope is that viewers take in the importance of relationship we as Lakota relatives have with unči maka (mother earth). We live because mother earth offers us food, water, air and shelter in abundance and we have a responsibility to care for her in the same ways she cares for us. 

- Dawnee Lebeau

Working through this project in a public setting like Instagram was very powerful. It helped me solidify both my ideas as well as my perspective and voice. The show and those involved inspired me to follow through on the work. Follow through has been challenging during the pandemic. This experience allowed me to ground the work in a more intimate and meaningful way.

- David Patrick Baboila

Given the accessibility of social media, this project gave me a chance to make a public statement about my experience with Rheumatoid Arthritis and share it with a potentially infinite audience. Chronic illness is often invisible and I think there is something radical and healing in being vocal and open about it. On a formal level, the limitation of the instagram ratio and grid layout was a good opportunity to explore social media as a narrative tool and a space with its own grammar.

- Zoe Cinel

This experience was very helpful in consolidating the value of what silence and introspection meant to me during the last couple of years. I collected a lot of images and notes during this time. It was very refreshing to be able to lay everything out in preparation for my featured work and see what I had collected both physically and through my memories — and find the themes that emerged as I spent a lot of time in quiet solitude.

- Yasmin Yassin

My main focus was getting out of my head and expressing emotions that I had been holding for these past two years of the pandemic. Embracing the awkwardness of meeting people again and talking about how the pandemic was impacting the most historically excluded communities. My main focus for this project was to bring back my essence as an artist to fight back the systems of exclusions.

- Lucino Sosa