The Face of the Other is a group exhibition curated by Gil Mualem-Doron and includes Aubane Berthommé Martinez, Arit Etukudo, Beth Easton, Charlie Wood, Constanza Miranda, Daniel Whiffen, Jenny Nash, Josef Cabey, Keith Race, l’enfant, Maria Amidu, Mengwen Cao, Najma Yusufi, Nelson Morales, Ryan Peter French, R.M. Sánchez-Camus, Tugba Tirpan and Sisters Uncut. More artists and writers will be featured in the SEAS zine, published later in May.
The works presented in this exhibition present two different approaches to the issue of visibility: one that uses visibility to make one’s identity or certain issues visible, to amplify voices, and as a tool of protest. Other works, sometimes even for the same ends, use masquerade, concealment, and defacement or do away entirely with the visual and use audio and texts. These works highlight social and political issues and yet others question the politics of visibility itself.
Curator Gil Mualem-Doron says: “In liberal democracies, visibility or representation and inclusion stand together. Making something or someone(s) visible is an important act in political and social struggles, especially for LGBTQ+ communities. Visibility is directly linked to representation and political power and to the right to protest. In the arts context, making something/someone visible is one of the most important strategies or consequences of socially and politically engaged art and of relational aesthetics.
“However, visibility, especially when enforced, is associated with systems of colonisation, of surveillance and control. For various groups, such as refugees, transgender people, homeless people, people of colour and religious minorities, visibility is always also a risk. Ask any black or brown kid who was stopped and searched, any visibly disabled person, any homeless person, any migrant who does not look ‘local’, a veiled Muslim woman, any trans preson who cannot ‘pass’ or any queer-looking person – they will tell you what the dangers of visibility are. Beyond the issue of safety, visibility is reducing their being to a single identity – robbing them of their humanity and excluding them from the rest of society.”
The exhibition can be viewed in the windows of The Ledward Centre and at the Black and Ethnic Minorities Community Partnership (BMECP) from Saturday, May 1 and online HERE from Saturday, May 8.
The opening event for the exhibition will be on Saturday, May 8 at 6pm. This will include a talk by the exhibition’s curator, some of the contributors and a Q&A.
Tickets are free and can be BOOKED HERE.
The exhibition, which also forms part of Brighton Festival and Brighton Fringe, is supported by Arts Council England, the Rainbow Trust, BMECP, Brighton & Hove Communities Fund and the Irene Mensah Bursary.
