How We Gather

The Mandeville Art Gallery, located on the campus of the University of California San Diego, presents How We Gather, a group exhibition that investigates the notion and enactment of solidarity across various contemporary artists’ practices through the lens of the pandemic.

The state of emergency brought on by Covid-19 both magnified existing structures of precarity and inequity, while also strengthening social bonds. In the words of writer, activist, and artist Johanna Hedva, as a society we witnessed “what happens when care insists on itself, when the care of others becomes mandatory, when it takes up space and money and labor and energy.” The failures, shocks, and losses brought on by the pandemic revealed a deficit of care in numerous realms, inspiring many artists, activists, and theorists to reevaluate how their work can generate a greater responsibility to a collective body—a stronger sense of unity, collaboration, and mutuality. From conversations on “solidarity economics” to attempts to build “solidarity infrastructures,” this exhibition takes stock of what solidarity in the arts means today.

Participating artists: Zarouhie Abdalian, Adelita Husni-Bey, Pia Camil, Cog•nate Collective, Kimi Hanauer, Susan Jahoda and Caroline Woolard, Elana Mann, noé olivas, Nina Sarnelle and Selwa Sweidan, Alice Yuan Zhang

Curated by Ceci Moss, Director and Chief Curator of the Mandeville Art Gallery and Professor of Practice, Visual Arts

Public programs
The community is invited to take part in numerous artist-led workshops, lectures and performances organized in conjunction with How We Gather. The goal is to foster exchange and communing, and prototype solidarity as a practice. All events are free and take place in person at the Mandeville Art Gallery, unless indicated otherwise.

How We Gather opening celebration: October 7, 2023, 2–6pm
The opening celebration features a new commission by Elana Mann and Sharon Chohi Kim, performed by the San Diego New Verbal Workshop. RSVP.

Roundtable conversation: October 14, 2023, 2–4pm
“And will be again…” led by Cog-nate Collective with Dr. Wayne Yang (UC San Diego professor and John Muir College provost) and Dina Gilio Whitaker (Colville Confederated Tribes descendant, scholar, educator, journalist, and author in American Indian studies)

A woven word web of our own / AWWWOOO​: October 21, 2023, 2–4pm
A workshop led by Alice Yuan Zhang.

Scaffolding Autonomies: Scores for Daily Rehearsal: November 4, 2023, 2–4 pm
An online workshop led by Kimi Hanauer of the Center for Liberatory Practice and Poetry. Online: sign up through the Mandeville Art Gallery’s website.

Touch Praxis: November 11, 2–4 pm
A workshop led by Nina Sarnelle and Selwa Sweidan.

Artist talk by noé olivas: November 28, 6:30pm
Location: SME (Structural & Materials Engineering Building) 149.

Lunchtime curator-led tours & exchange days for Pia Camil’s A Pot for a Latch: Monthly. Thursday, October 26, 12:30–1:30pm / Thursday, November 16, 12:30–1:30pm / Thursday, December 7, 12:30–1:30pm.

Upcoming exhibitions
NOT NOW BUT NOW: January 11–February 3, 2024, MFA preview exhibition. NOT NOW BUT NOW features six UC San Diego MFAs who reckon with the impossibility of now through urgent evocations of past and future. Artists: Deanna Barahona, JAX, Jun!yi Min, Naomi Nadreau, Chanell Stone, Nathan Storey.

About the Mandeville Art Gallery
The Mandeville Art Gallery, previously known as the University Art Gallery, is a long-standing fixture on the UC San Diego campus with a five-decade history of presenting innovative art in the context of a major research university. Managed by the School of Arts and Humanities and located on the west end of Mandeville Center, the gallery operates as an institute for transformative contemporary art serving both the university and the local community, and it newly re-opened after extensive renovations in March 2023.

Hours: Thursday–Saturday, 12–8pm. Admission: free. Parking & directions.