Rachel McDermott
Ever-Present Presence
Stephanie Concepcion Ramirez, D’Angelo Lovell Williams, and Hannah Bates
June 2020
Stephanie Concepcion Ramirez, D’Angelo Lovell Williams, and Hannah Bates explore present realities, recent histories, and social constructs that have been misrepresented in mass media through acts of whitewashing by political and societal powers. Through seemingly gentle intimate moments, the three artists use their own bodies and personal histories to disrupt existing mainstream narratives and speak to the lasting impact of political injustice, deliberate ignorance, and/or historical trauma. Their tender acts of care through touch, ingestion, and eye contact embody moments of vulnerability and power as they question historical “truths” and their continued influence on the present. Spotlighting the power dynamics that continue to dictate the ways moments are remembered and communicated as history, the exhibition supports artists, who through their own self-understanding placemaking practices, make work that pushes for change in contemporary time through methods of documentation as proof of current realities.
The publication is a shift in form from an exhibition scheduled to take place at ACRE Projects in April to a printed and mailed publication due to COVID-19. A type of #museumfromhome that rifts on an exhibition catalog and lands somewhere between a publication and exhibition experience in hopes to bring a moment of gathering from afar.
