6.30.14 Half the Sky Project - Early Impressions

I have a feeling that full, if that is indeed possible, processing of this multi-layered, complicated yet rewarding and surprising project, will take months, if not years, but here is an overview and some initial responses ....

In March 2013, Wei Er Shen, President of LuXun Academy of Fine Arts in Shenyang, Liaoning Province, China invited the Women’s Caucus for Art (WCA), through Jin Deng, to create an art-based cultural exchange and exhibition between artists and essayists juried through WCA and women artists curated in China. He and the Gallery Director Wang Yi Gang were interested in providing an opportunity for Chinese women artists to interact with artists from our organization, to learn more about feminist art history in the west and share their art with our artists. As the Main Representative to the United Nations for and Director of the International Caucus of the Women's Caucus for Art, I enthusiastically embraced this opportunity to direct this project and to further dialogue around women's issues within the framework of an exhibition. In addition to the exhibition, Half the Sky: Intersections of Social Practice Art included a sixteen-member delegation of selected WCA members, thirteen of whom, traveled to Shenyang for the opening of this exhibition and participated in three days of interactive events with the Chinese artists and students of the Academy. Over twenty-five volunteers from the U.S., working in teams, developed, prepped, installed, documented, publicized, fundraised, published, facilitated and traveled to create the many layers of this project. Logistics were beyond daunting, including the bilingual catalog, but, once one begins negotiations with a government such as China, one feels one must proceed, with hopes and bits of promises that the discoveries and connections and knowledge shared between our cultures would, indeed, like child birth, erase the challenges of remote management. And, the results certainly did.

A small village of volunteers made this possible:

Director: Sherri Cornett
Co-Director: Jing Deng
Jurors/Curators: Alma Ruiz/US Art Juror, Terri Weissman/US Essayist Juror, Wang Yi Gang and Zhao Yin Ou/Chinese Curators
Delegates: Alli Berman, Sherri Cornett, Jing Deng, Christine Giancola, Kay Kang, Mido Lee, Elana Mann, Neda Moridpour, Rosemary Meza-DesPlas, Katie Morton, Sandra Mueller, Brenda Oelbaum, Priscilla Otani
U.S. Artists/Collaborations/Collectives:   A Window Between Worlds, Susan Armington, Allib Berman, Suzanne Beutler, Elizabeth Bisbing, Jessica Burke, Chan + Mann, Sherri Cornett + Sandra Mueller, Jing Deng, Laurie Edison, Danielle Eubank, Christine Giancola, Sara Beth Goncarova, Guerilla Gowns, Maki Hajikano, Aram Han, Maxine Hess, Kay Kang, Mido Lee, Louder Than Words, Rosemary Meza-DesPlas, Katie Morton, Mary Neubauer, Brenda Oelbaum, Priscilla Otani, Min Kim Park, Eva Preston + Joanna Fulginiti, Jaye Phillips, Marjorie Durko Puryear, Sinan Leong Revell, Wendy Simmons, T'Alyne, Virginia Tyler, Margi Weir
China Artists:  从瓴萁 Cong Ling Qi, 冯淋 Feng Lin, 刘桦 Liu Hua, 刘知音 Liu Zhi Yin, 刘艳 Liu Yan, 唐钰涵 Tang Yu Han, 姜晓梅 Jiang Xiao Mei, 宋卓然 Song Zhuo Ran, 张然 Zhang Ran, 徐丹 Xu Dan, 李一濛 Li Yi Meng, 李小诗 Li Xiao Shi, 燕思雯 Yan Si Wen, 王庆珍 Wang Qing Zhen, 王慧娜 Wang Hui Na, 田寒 Tian Han, 耿旖旎 Geng Yi Ni, 范晓妍 Fan Xiao Yan, 莫棣 Mo Di, 蔡世瞿 Cai Shi Qu, 袁佳 Yuan Jia, 赵银欧 Zhao Yin Ou
Essayists: Betsy Damon, Natalie Phillips, Sherry Saunders, Sandra Mueller
Steering Committee:  Sherri Cornett, Jing Deng, Wang Yi Gang - Curator of Chinese Art, Yin Ou Zhao - Co-Curator of Chinese Art, Priscilla Otani - Human Resources Director, Sandra Mueller - Project Development, Cultural and Community Events Director, Karen Gutfreund -  Travel/Administrative Logistics , Alli Berman - Fundraising and Publicity Director, Krista Jiannacopoulos - Social Media/Publicity, Mido Lee - Assistant to the Director
Catalog:  Sherri Cornett - Editor, Alli Berman, Jing Deng, Karen Gufreund, Mido Lee, Virginia Maksymowicz, Sandra Mueller, Priscilla Otani, Jill Waterhouse
Communications:  Virginia Maksymowicz - Communications Director
Cultural and Community Events:  Sandra Mueller - Director, S. A. Bachman, Alli Berman, Audrey Chan, Sherri Cornett, Elana Mann, Neda Moridpour
Documentation:  Christine Giancola - Documentation Director, S. A. Bachman, Audrey Chan, Sherri Cornett, Mido Lee, Elana Mann, Neda Moridpour
Fundraising: Alli Berman , Director, Sherri Cornett , Krista Jiannacopoulos, Sal Sidner 
Installation:  Rosemary Meza-DesPlas - Installation Director, S. A. Bachman, Alli Berman, Audrey Chan, Jing Deng, Kay Kang, Mido Lee, Elana Mann, Neda Moridpour, Katie Morton, Sandra Mueller, Brenda Oelbaum
De-installation: Katie Morton and Kay Kang
Publicity: Alli Berman, Co-Director, Jill Waterhouse, Co-Director, Sherri Cornett, Krista Jiannacopoulos , Kay Kang, Rosemary Meza-DesPlas, Sandra Mueller
Research/Advisors: Tanya Augsburg , Kieran Collins , Diane Ding, Krista Jiannacopolous, Bonnie MacAllister , Meng Tang, Wanxin Zhang

And, once past the Cultural Bureau approval hurdles and shipping issues, we arrived in Shenyang and were immediately swept up in the installation of a stunning exhibition. The opening day reception was packed with students and professors and locals and, as we were told, a "communist hat" - a person making sure that none of this would incite any ruckus or illegal activity. Our planned community engagement projects - Sandra's and my Points of Many Connections Dome with the Journey Marker exercise, Elana and Audrey's Myths and Facts of Rape People's Microphone Session, SA and Neda's These Walls Can Talk participatory installation about domestic violence, were surprisingly powerful. We had no idea how much so, but heard, through Mido's translations, that, in this more conservation region of China, citizens rarely use the first person pronoun, so, with the Journey Markers, asking them to say out loud their name and where they support their community, was a freeing beginning to then asking questions about domestic violence (we heard there were no support organizations for it, much less places to talk about it) and the repetitions that included the word "rape" were uncomfortable, but, again, broke through some traditional verbal walls. 

Initially, the Chinese artists in our Artist's Roundtable questioned us about the need for feminist activist art, since, in China, all were equal. After our sharing of stories about how women still struggle with equality in the US, they opened up. They shared that indeed, their hopes, goals and dreams often took backseat to those of men. 

Because Mido spoke Mandarin, she was able to eavesdrop and reported that there was discussion about the like of "fineness" in much of the work we brought over.  But, she also heard people talking about how using nontraditional materials had some power in their messages. ​