Grow so much you shatter the concrete.

I Visited WAAS ’s new exhibition on June 8th to understand the programming I was going to be inserting myself into the following month. My internship experience last year really motivated me to cultivate art-spaces which allow and encourage emotional vulnerability in a public setting. I feel like that is very important for today’s society, particularly in my personal location, Texas. 

I wanted to bring to WAAS a way of understanding and working around contemporary art which heals. Aspects of healing through art can be using it to express inner reflections, deprivations and imaginations. Or simply by using art-making as a means to interact socially with other humans without actually “socializing” (aka talking). To be in a room with other humans who want to feel better and move forward can be incredibly strengthening. I was interested in using art to facilitate collective spaces of emotional expression, conscious or unconscious.

The following week after my visit at WAAS I art guarded for the new exhibition at The Warehouse titled The Sensation of Space, and stood in front of a piece in Doris Salcedo’s Untitled series.

Image courtesy of The Warehouse. From left to right: Bettina Pousttchi, Doris Salcedo and Nadia Kaabi-Linke

 In the same room was a sculpture by Bettina Pousttchi titled Double Monument for Flavin and Tatlin X (2013) and Nadia Kaabi-Linke's Tunisian Americans. As well as work by Vlassis Caniaris, Bosco Sodi and Katheryn Andrews.

Reflection of Gallery 10 on Kathryn Andrews' Die Another Day, 2013

The pieces together really had me thinking about the way in which we can block things from our historical memory. 

Close up of Untitled (2001) and Tunisian Americans (2012)

Close up of Untitled (2001) and Tunisian Americans (2012)

Sometimes it isn't an intentional block, but an emotional block, a numbing of an aspect of reality that helps us forget just enough to move forward and grow.

Not my picture, I found it on Pinterest:
https://i.pinimg.com/474x/aa/ac/8c/aaac8ca001487300077219648cd5655a--tree-roots-as-above-so-below.jpg

Growth, I thought of the way a tree’s roots can grow so much, they shatter the concrete sidewalk.