December 7, 2023 – February 25, 2024
Accessibility
- Out of care for our community and those living with chronic or terminal illnesses, please wear a mask in the galleries on Fridays from December 7, 2023 – February 25, 2024. High-quality masks will be offered to those who are in attendance.
- For guidance on getting to the M, check out this video. To make arrangements or for further assistance surrounding access, please call the M at (651) 797-2571 or email info@mmaa.org.
Emerging Curators Institute is committed to supporting accessibility for D/deaf, disabled and neurodiverse communities. We welcome those with questions surrounding access to email info@emergingcurators.org.
Currents: Adaption, Brilliance and Joy is a group exhibition highlighting dynamic work by disabled artists within the Twin Cities and from across the country.
The group exhibition features interdisciplinary works by artists Victoria Dugger, Ariella Granados, Aurora Levins Morales, Kelley Meister and Lynda Mullan. They each consider the ways disabled artists guide us forward through the present, and inevitably toward futures that prioritize and embrace all the complexities and joys of radical access and care.
Kindred to bustling bodies of water that move over and around boulders, and gusts of air that bend branches and leaves, Currents: Adaption, Brilliance and Joy references the strength, influence, and adaptability of disabled people and our communities.
Currents: Adaption, Brilliance and Joy also invokes the current moment. This exhibition takes place during multiple mass-disabling events. There are more people who are becoming disabled everyday––be it from the ongoing pandemic, effects of the climate crisis, or the brutality of war.
The exhibition is made possible through Emerging Curators Institute, with generous support from exhibition partner The M. In the spirit of expanding our collective understandings of care, as well as fostering disabled joy and catharsis, during their fellowship with ECI, Maude-Griffin focused on developing an exhibition featuring disabled artists.
In moving through the initial year of the fellowship, Drew Maude-Griffin explored varied approaches to curatorial practices as part of a cohort of four distinct Fellows. Throughout the fellowship Drew paired with mentor Taraneh Fazeli (she/her/they) a chronically ill Iranian-American curator, writer, and cultural organizer. Maude-Griffin gained experiences with contemporary curatorial practice including professional development through monthly meetings, resources to support research for the exhibition, and connections with noted curators in the field.
About the Artist’s Work
Each piece exists in conversation with disabled bodies and disabled worlds, gleaming with wisdom.
Victoria Dugger
Victoria Dugger’s fiber sculptures sit full-bodied and relaxed, draped over chairs—their color and opulent decoration embodying the delight of an access need fully met.
Ariella Granados
Ariella Granados’s short film and photographs highlight a community of disabled utopias, built from a series of gatherings with disabled artists in Chicago.
Aurora Levins Morales
Aurora Levins Morales turns our minds toward disabled embodiment as a map forward in her piece Body Map, alongside an excerpt from her essay “Mountain Moving Day,” in which she states: “What our bodies require in order to thrive, is what the world requires.”
Kelley Meister
Long COVID medication and supplement bottles that once lined medicine cabinets and bedside tables are repurposed, reclaimed, and activated with neon portals by Kelley Meister.
Lynda Mullan
Lynda Mullan’s paintings honoring her robotic companion pet, Max, offer joyful, vibrant labyrinths of color, reflecting the ways companionship and connection expand our world.
