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How do we challenge and change a world in which economic, environmental, racial, and gender injustices are cruel realities for far too many? By speaking truth to power through our words and art. By bearing witness.
Bearing Witness is an online exhibition and benefit auction that brings together an extraordinary global community of artists whose work speaks to a range of social injustices. The pieces at the heart of Bearing Witness explore themes of resilience, resistance, healing, and empowerment while asking audiences to “see” that which we too often choose to ignore.
The exhibition is curated by Randy Jayne Rosenberg, founder of Art Works for Change and former Chief Curator of the art collection at The World Bank, with support from Tiphanie Spencer of Chicago’s Hana Pietri Gallery. Proceeds from Bearing Witness will benefit Center for Story & Witness and its award-winning, global testimonial writing program for survivors of gender-based violence and other human rights violations.
The Bearing Witness online exhibition will run October 17 – November 7; the exhibition will close with a live auction/gala in Chicago November 7.
Bearing Witness will showcase an extraordinary range of creators working across mediums. Artists whose work is included in major museum collections (Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago’s Museum of Contemporary Art, New York’s Museum of Modern Art, Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC) will be shown alongside self-taught artists whose work exists outside of the mainstream and has often been developed in the face of – or in response to – the racial, social or economic injustices Center for Story & Witness seeks to address.
Daniel Arzola
Lynn Basa
Phyllis Bramson
Diane Christensen
William Conger
Doug Fogelson
Al Grumet
Stephanie Hargrave
Deborah Kapoor
Vera Klement
Belen Millan
Sandro Miller
Louise Noel
Lorraine Peltz
Susan Plum
Lucy Puls
Randy Rosenberg
Soledad Salame
Francesca Schwartz
Mike Siska
Tiphanie Spencer
Lucy Slivinski
Marvin Tate
Meet the exhibition co-creators
Center for Story & Witness co-founder Anne K. Ream is a writer, activist and storyteller. She is the author of Lived Through This, her critically praised memoir of a global journey spent listening to survivors of gender-based violence; a co-founder at World Without Exploitation, the coalition to end human trafficking; and a founding board member at Art Works for Change, where she collaborated with curator Randy Jayne Rosenberg in creating programming for Off the Beaten Path: Violence, Women & Art, an international contemporary art exhibition. Anne’s writing has appeared in the Los Angeles Times, the New Republic, the Washington Post and numerous other publications and she has received numerous awards for her global work using art and story to create social change. Learn more about Anne.
Curator Randy Jayne Rosenberg is the founder of Art Works for Change, which creates international contemporary art exhibitions that speak to a range of social and environmental justice issues. An international exhibiting artist, art therapist, educator and curator, Randy has provided curatorial and art consulting services to a long list of international and cultural organizations, including The World Bank, International Finance Corporation, and the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. A longstanding Center for Story & Witness partner and a member of the Center’s Launch & Leadership Circle, Randy is a passionate believer in art’s power to create change. Learn more about Randy.
Curator Tiphanie Spencer is a French/American artist, independent curator, art dealer, and patron of the arts. Tiphanie is the founder of Hana Pietri Gallery, which began as a salon in 2011 under the name The Arts Palette, and evolved into a Chicago-based art production company partnering with cultural institutions like the Chicago Cultural Center, the Cultural Services of the French Embassy, the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, and Intuit: The Center for Intuitive and Outsider Art. Today Hana Pietri Gallery is one of Chicago’s premier alternative exhibition spaces, uplifting a diverse community of artists, and facilitating creative connection and conversations that honor differences while fostering understanding. Learn more about Tiphanie.
Be a Bearing Witness exhibition & auction sponsor
Bearing Witness Gala & Closing Live Auction Nov. 7
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