I Am Because You Are, 2017
Cotton, interfacing, and thread, each portrait 35″ x 23"
Injustice as far as the eye can see. Cries of hopelessness and drowning dreams with little more than murky visions to guide, reveal, through your lives, a constant flowing river with tributaries too numerous to count, and I ask: how did you see across so many divides?
Larry Itliong, detail
And, in response, your life-as-lived demands: Will you sit by and watch from the side, as our loved ones, and ones we have come to love are thrown away, disregarded, unseen, unheard? Are you prepared to disregard a mother’s love? Closing your eyes and ears to the father who calls out for his child? Choking off life, forsaking unfamiliar beauty, culture? Forsaking us in one breathe, and yourself in the next?
Look into our heartfelt river of blue! Hear the call from our lives as lived! Touch the threads stitching all of humanity–one to another! Each choice, each step, and with each added voice, Momentum. I am not alone, I become we, I am because you are.
Tougaloo: Anne Moody (1940 – 2015)
and Ernst Borinski (1901 – 1983)
Tougaloo Collge, Tougaloo, Mississippi: African-American, author and lunch counter sit-in activist Anne Moody and Jewish émigré lawyer and sociology professor Ernst Borinski resisted systematic segregation, discrimination, vigilante and state violence.
Delano: Larry Itliong (1942 –1976)
and Dolores Huerta (1930 – present)
Grape Strike and Boycott, Delano, California: Filipino immigrant and labor organizer Larry Itliong and Mexican American labor organizer Dolores Huerta joined forces to lead farmworkers in a multi-racial, ten-year-long Grape Strike and Boycott to gain union recognition and a contract for farmworkers, historically ‘exempt’ from the Fair Labor Standards Act.
Weimar: Daniel Barenboim (1942 – present)
and Edward Said (1935 – 2003)
Parallels and Paradoxes, Weimar, Germany: Jewish, Argentine-Israeli pianist and conductor Daniel Barenboim and Palestinian-American public intellectual, professor and pianist Edward Said, after sharing conversations about music, politics, and being, collaborate to bring Arab and Israeli musicians together to play Beethoven and transcend national identities through music.
Washington, DC: Rev. Dr. William Barber II (1963 – present)
and Valarie Kaur (1981 – present)
Night Watch Service, Washington, DC: African American, Protestant Preacher and political leader Rev. Dr. William Barber II called Sikh American, civil rights activist, film maker and faith leader Valarie Kaur to stand with him to summon our collective courage for this time of resistance and, and in Kaur’s words, “breath and then, push” towards new life.
New York & Hawaii: Linda Sarsour (1980 – present)
and Derrick Kahala Watson (1966 – present)
Muslim Ban, New York to Hawaii: On one shore, Palestinian-American Muslim activist from the streets of Brooklyn, NY Linda Sarsour lifted her voice, fiercely leading to reclaim the humanity of the communities targeted by fear and hate. Simultaneously on the other shore, Honorably discharged Army Reservist, Native Hawaiian Federal District Court Judge, Derrick Kahala Watson, courageously called for an end to the 45th President’s madness, calling foul on his attempt to transgress the limits of his authority on the backs of Immigrants, Refugees and Muslims. No doubt hearing the echos of the Executive Order 9066.