Describing Language

Thinking Through Access and Communication

Farhad Bahram, Jodie Cavalier, Jovencio de la Paz, Tannaz Farsi, Christine Miller, Warren Miller, Alyson Provax, Josie Love Roebuck, Xia Zhang, Yuyang Zhang

August 21 – October 2, 2021

Jodie Cavalier, A Poem Divided Pt. 2 (detail), 2021. A series of 11 postcards that together make a poem called Waiting For.

Jodie Cavalier, A Poem Divided Pt. 2 (detail), 2021. A series of 11 postcards that together make a poem called Waiting For.

 

The way someone can communicate to another person can be the point where they can access their needs, wants, or desires. So often miscommunication can deny people resources and opportunities. Describing Language, a partnership between the University of Southern Indiana and University of Oregon’s Center for Art Research, serves as both an exhibition and a laboratory for examining the ways in which language and other methods of communication allow or deny access. 

Describing Language includes artists from both the Midwest and the West, illustrating the ways in which technology allows us to communicate and collaborate across distances and in differing environments. The featured artists address various issues including global language and patterns of colonization, Semiotics, education, propaganda, resistance, technology, ableism, emotion, labor, and identity, which all converge in an examination around access and power. Serving as points of entry for community discussion and investigation, Describing Language is malleable and changing, inviting other examples, experiences, and learning opportunities around the theme of communication and access.

Artists & Images

Research & References

 

 

New Harmony Gallery of Contemporary Art, University of Indiana

506 Main Street, New Harmony, IN 47631

We wish to acknowledge and honor the Indigenous communities native to this region, and recognize that the University of Southern Indiana was built on unceded Indigenous homelands and resources. We recognize the Kickapoo, Kaskaskia, Osage, Shawnee, Myaamia, and O-ga-xpa Ma-zho people as past, present, and future caretakers of this land.