Shifting Ground — Cedar Rapids
Medium: Participatory art, Social Design, Sculpture, Video with sound.
Shifting Ground Outro Chão is an immigrant outreach project that uses art making and the creative process as a vehicle for learning about each other (past and present) and finding a sense of place within a new culture while also retaining pride in one’s heritage. The initiative was held in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, USA, and sponsored by the Iowa Ceramic Center and Glass Studio (ICCGS). The aim is to empower and give visibility to undervalued immigrant groups in our own community while promoting social and cultural sustainability.
When immigration policies demonstrate increasing intolerance and social injustice, we wanted to show that the visual arts, in particular, and culture, in a broader sense, are an essential means for embracing difference. None of us can be sure - whether short-term or long-term, as refugees from war, natural disaster, or other causes - that we might not be in a similar situation without our home or country, being shuffled between temporary living spaces. Searching for a better future in a new place is common to all living species. As intelligent beings living in civilised societies, we must provide new forms of welcoming and inclusion that incorporate the arts and encourage creative thinking and the use of imagination as survival strategies.
António Gorgel Pinto, Paula Reaes Pinto and Jane Gilmor in collaboration with Hispanic and Central African immigrants.
2019
