Terry Adkins, John Akomfrah, Shelagh Keeley, Zineb Sedira, Dylan Miner, Sheryl Oring, The Hinterlands : The Unfinished Conversation: Encoding/Decoding and Vital Signs for a New America

Artists: Terry Adkins, John Akomfrah, Shelagh Keeley, Zineb Sedira, Dylan Miner, Sheryl Oring

The Penny W. Stamps School of Art & Design at the University of Michigan presents two fall 2017 companion exhibitions on view at the Stamps Gallery September 8 to October 14, 2017: The Unfinished Conversation: Encoding/Decoding and Vital Signs for a New America. Both exhibitions encourage audiences to construct new readings of the past and imagine new paradigms for the future. There will be an exhibition reception on Friday, September 8 from 6 to 8pm. The exhibitions and reception are free and open to the public. 

The Unfinished Conversation: Encoding/Decoding
Co-curated by Gaëtane Verna, Director of The Power Plant in Toronto, and Mark Sealy, The Unfinished Conversation includes image and video work by Terry Adkins, John Akomfrah, Shelagh Keeley, and Zineb Sedira. The exhibition is grounded in the work of cultural theorist Stuart Hall (1932-2014), a Jamaican-born United Kingdom academic who devoted his life to studying the interweaving threads of culture, power, politics, and history. The Unfinished Conversation: Encoding/Decoding is organized and circulated by The Power Plant Contemporary Art Gallery, Toronto in partnership with Autograph ABP, London. The exhibition is co-curated by Gaëtane Verna, Director, The Power Plant and Mark Sealy, Director, Autograph ABP. 

Vital Signs for a New America 
Curated by Srimoyee Mitra, active public engagement is at the heart of Vital Signs for a New America. Each work on view in this group exhibition offers opportunities to interact directly with the artists and their art. As part of the exhibition programming, the gallery will become a common space for storytelling and tea drinking with Dylan Miner; a bustling executive assistant’s office with Sheryl Oring; and a tactile, expansive personal archive with the performance collective The Hinterlands. Vital Signs invites the public to speak out, listen, and imagine new models for inclusive futures.

“Through research- and process-based exhibitions like The Unfinished Conversation and Vital Signs, the Stamps Gallery becomes a space for the entire community to come together to explore, experience, and discuss questions that challenge us and open us up to new possibilities,” said Srimoyee Mitra, Stamps Gallery Director. “These conversations signal the burgeoning and critical role of creative practices in building momentum towards justice and positive change. As one of the newest cultural spaces in the city of Ann Arbor, we are thrilled to nurture and cultivate a hub for expanding the imagination through art and design practices.”