Curated by Shannon Rae Stratton

Hosted by:
Weston Art Gallery
Aronoff Center for the Arts
650 Walnut Street
Cincinnati, Oh 45202
513-977- 4166
www.westonartgallery.com

ENTRY DEADLINE:  Wednesday, October 7, 2020   (11:59pm MDT)

EXHIBITION DATES: February 5 – March 28, 2021

ABOUT THE NCECA ANNUAL
The NCECA Annual blends impactful attributes of invitational and open juried models of exhibition development. Exhibition curator Shannon Rae Stratton’s organizing concept is brought to life through the work of three invited artists. The curator will select additional works and artists for the exhibition through an open call for submissions.

Stratton shares the following about her vision for the exhibition:

According to physician’s Vivek H. Murthy and Alice Chen’s March article for the Atlantic, the corona virus could cause what is being called a “social recession.” They speak about how the longer we go without personal contact, the more social bonds fray and unravel, leading to harmful effects on mood, health, our ability to learn and work, and our overall sense of community. Their concern stems from an already growing body of national and global research on the epidemic of loneliness that reports, at the lowest 22% of American adults, and at the highest 50%, are struggling with loneliness. That is more adults than smoke or have diabetes. 

Many artists working in craft value the field for its history of peer-to-peer exchange, mentorship, functionality and proximity to the body. It’s a field that identifies itself with connection and touch, with craft objects – whether functional design or conceptual art – often serving social functions. 

While Murthy and Chen were concerned with fraying social bonds based on enforced separation, the legacy of settler colonialism and white suprematism that has shaped capitalism, Western culture and specifically the United States, has long disrupted social bonds, destroying communities, histories and traditions in its wake. 

This call for artwork for the NCECA Annual invites artists to consider the tension between together and apart, interdependence, belonging, hospitality and modes of support that allow people to extend themselves with mindfulness and compassion towards each other and to the non-human world. As the list of untenable and ailing structures that have caused harm begin to crumble, what change can be supported through connection, compassion and empathy?

Living in a culture that places a high value on individuality has obscured the reality of interdependence – the fact that nobody thinks or creates in a vacuum. If anything, people are all vectors for one thing or another, transmitting ideas that have coalesced in and around us at any given time. Empathy is the nourishment required to sustain a tender “us” now and in the future. 

Interested artists are encouraged to submit works that draw on their personal and cultural experience to explore themes of the social and how social connection, as a renewable resource, is a means for addressing the challenges we face both individually and as a society. We encourage submissions that deal with collective grief and mourning, rage, empowerment, joy, care and compassion – but all through work grounded in connection, interdependence and the social.

Full Details HERE.