U.S. Embassy Ankara – Sence/From Your Perspective is about you – it is about what you see and what you experience. For all of us, how we see the world around us begins with where we stand, our past experiences, our perceptions, our interpretations, and our beliefs. With this exhibition through a variety of mediums, we are exploring how we define the truth and how we change our perceptions. By moving ourselves and shifting our positions, we see something differently. Through this creative disclocation we gain insight into the understandings of others, and in turn perhaps have a glimpse into how they see the world around them. Sometimes just by taking a few steps to the left or the right the image is transformed and we experience something entirely new.
As a photographer, Rick Chapman moved himself and the camera to capture four different images of Muhammad Ali – each giving us a new point of view of the famous athlete. To see DJ León’s pieces and Graham Caldwell’s sculpture we must move ourselves. Through Kevin Cole’s sculpture we experience the story of racism and violence in America through shapes and movement. Jaune Quick-to-See Smith’s work is both a nod to Andy Warhol’s iconic images and an insight into Native American culture and experience – a culture that is often silenced in the United States and one we rarely hear outside of the United States but one that brings a richness to our culture and history and forces us to question our own understandings of the past. Susan Wides’s photograph examines focus and the connection between subject and subjectivity. Susan Eder and Craig Dennis capture the connections many find between faith and the natural world in their images of clouds. Dennis Lee Mitchell’s piece uses an unexpected media – smoke – leading us to consider the origins of beauty. Each artist presents to us their persepctive and as observers of the art, we too have our own. As you explore the exhibition, what do you see?
Mevlana wrote – “Somewhere beyond right and wrong, there is a garden. I will meet you there.” We hope this exhibition is garden for you, a place to explore how others see the world around them and the world around you. As you move through the exhibition, we hope you will enjoy the exhibition and create and question your own perspective and truths while seeing the perspective and truth of others.
