Currents: Adaption, Brilliance and Joy

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.

Open House:

Discussion with curator Drew Maude-Griffin at 1:30 p.m.
ASL interpretation will be available. 

Masks are required at this event. High-quality masks will be available. 

This is a fragrance-free event. Please refrain from wearing heavily scented products. Fragrance-free soap and sanitizer will be available. More information on being fragrance-free can be found at http://sharetheair.ucla.edu and in Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha’s Fragrance Free Femme of Colour Genius.

Please Register Here

About the Curator:

Drew Maude-Griffin is an interdisciplinary artist, author and educator whose work explores illness, disability and the complex politics of care. Drew creates multisensory artworks as a way of making visible the unseen realities of their illness. Their work is made with the intention of honoring and building community with other sick and disabled folks, as well as broadening how we all think of, practice, and experience care. They are a recent graduate of the Minneapolis College of Art and Design, where they completed their BFA in Drawing and Painting with a Teaching Artist minor. Their writing was recently featured in The Walker Art Center’s online platform Mn Artists, where Maude-Griffin was the guest editor of a six-article series featuring local disabled artists. Their work has been exhibited at the MCAD Gallery, Intermedia Arts, Co Exhibitions, the Schelfhaudt Gallery, and the Chan Gallery. Currently, they work as a Gallery Assistant at Fresh Eye Gallery in Kingfield Minneapolis, and are an art facilitator for Fresh Eye Arts, a progressive arts studio supporting artists with disabilities.

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.
 

This exhibit is free and open to the public.

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.

Image description: Bright pink text with rounded edges reads: Currents. Adaptation, Brilliance, and Joy. Below the text is a pink rectangle with organic shapes resembling roots or branches cut out and emerging from the square. The background is a light gray with a soft static texture.