Opening Reception: Saturday, September 14th, 4–6:30pm
Exhibition Dates: September 9 – November 1, 2019
Rhythmix Cultural Works and K Gallery, in collaboration with curator Michelle Nye, present DIASPORA VOICED – A Bay Area Juried Art Exhibition, showcasing 19 diverse Bay Area artists. The entire exhibition runs September 9th – November 1st with an opening reception on Saturday, September 14th from 4:00-6:30pm.
Artwork and Artist Bios: Click to view
Opening Reception: Photos
Exhibiting Artists
826 Valencia Tenderloin Podcast Project (with artpaul cartier), Jennifer Berkowitz, Cynthia Brannvall, Alex da Silva, Najib Joe Hakim, Kacy Jung, Kay Kang, Pantea Karimi, Natasha Kohli, Purin Phanichphant, Mayela Rodriguez, Joanna Ruckman, Azin Seraj, Elizabeth Sher, Inez Storer, Rupy C. Tut, Camilo Villa, Sharon Virtue, Adreinne Waheed
Best of Show: Azin Seraj
Juror Awards: 826 Valencia Tenderloin Podcast Project (with artpaul cartier), Jennifer Berkowitz, Najib Joe Hakim, Kacy Jung, Mayela Rodriguez (2 awards), Azin Seraj, Rupy C. Tut, Adreinne Waheed
About Diaspora Voiced
The Tate defines diaspora as “a term used to describe movements in population from one country to another and is often cited in discussions about identity.” The melting pot of the Bay Area offers opportunities for individuals and communities to cross, merge, and hybridize. Each person constructs a unique identity much like a collage artist composes a cohesive whole out of varied and juxtaposed parts.
Touching on these themes, the selected artists energize the space with a range of personal and collective explorations, creating an exhibition mirroring the ways peoples migrate, settle, and thrive: from reflections on ancestral traditions, to depictions of the journey of refugees, to abstracted memories of native landscapes and missed family members, to celebrations of personal freedoms.
The jurors awarded Azin Seraj Best of Show, for her compelling series, Foreign Exchange. Responding to ‘”current American politics, including Trump’s “Muslim Ban”, and the corresponding rise of racism, Islamophobia, and polarization,'” Azin Seraj’s banknotes “honor activists/groups from countries based on their historical conflict with US national interest.” Seraj’s work exemplifies a powerful and pressing exploration of the themes of this exhibition, where conceptions of heritage, statehood, home and self form multifaceted and distinct truths in postcolonial globalized societies.
About the Jurors
Demetri Broxton is a mixed media artist, arts educator, and independent curator. He works as the Senior Director of Education at the Museum of the African Diaspora (MoAD) in San Francisco and contract curator for the City of Berkeley since 2014. As an artist, Broxton’s sculptural work serves as an active investigation of cultural continuities from Africa to America. Born and raised in Oakland, Broxton holds a BFA with an emphasis on oil painting from UC Berkeley and an MA in Museum Studies from San Francisco State University.
Mayumi Hamanaka is a visual artist, curator and educator. She also works as Gallery and Communications Director at Kala Art Institute, Berkeley. Originally from Japan, her work often uses photographs and references to examine historical events and individual memories and stories embedded in those events. Hamanaka received her MFA from California College of the Arts, San Francisco. She has taught photography at California College of the Arts, Berkeley City College and Diablo Valley College.
Daniel Nevers is the Executive Director at the Berkeley Art Center. He is an artist and educator with more than 20 years of experience working in the nonprofit sector, primarily in the areas of communications, fundraising and strategic planning. Nevers has taught studio art and professional practices for artists at the University of California, Berkeley, California College of the Arts and Mills College. Nevers holds an MFA from Mills College and a bachelor’s degree in journalism from the University of Texas at Austin.
About the Curator
Michelle Nye is the Interim Director at the SFMOMA Artists Gallery. Previously she received her bachelors of art at UC Santa Cruz, at the University of Bologna, Italy and l’Academia degli Belli Arte in Bologna, Italy. As a curator she has organized public exhibitions and as an artist she has practiced photography, painting and poetry, exhibiting and selling throughout the Bay Area. She serves on the advisory council of Kala Art Institute, Sensoree and Rhythmix Cultural Works.
Image: Turbo’s Dream, photograph, Adreinne Waheed.