Opening Night, Thursday March 5th , 6-8pm

On view at RISD|Public Engagement, 2nd Floor, CIT Buildling, 169 Weybosset Street, Providence, RI from March 5 thru April 3, 2009.

RISD|Public Engagement is pleased to sponsor the upcoming exhibit Tricks of the Eye: History and Memory in a Shifting Social Landscape. The exhibition highlights the ways that local and national artists respond to the shifting landscapes that backdrop and underline our society’s actions and intentions. Viewed together, the documentation of these at projects foster a vibrant learning environment for the RISD and Providence communities to develop an expanded horizon of what it means to make socially- and publicly-engaged artwork.

Tricks of the Eye incorporates documentation of past and current projects that invite multiple methods of engagement from the viewer.  Documentation strategies include web presentations, printed material, models, as well as ephemera from the original artwork.

Artists and projects in the exhibition include:

• 220 Glimpses of Utopia (John Malpede and the Los Angeles Poverty Department, Los Angeles, CA)
• Arctic Listening Post (Jane D. Marsching, Boston, MA)
• Armadillo FEMA Trailer Project (Jae Rhim Lee, MIT, Cambridge, MA)
• Blue Hammer and ReMEMBERING WILDE(Leon Johnson, Portland, ME)
• Celebrate Peoples’ History Poster Project (Josh MacPhee, New York City, NY)
• Just Fish (Pam Hall, St. John’s, Newfoundland)
• Navigating the Space between Home & Exile (Sheryl Mendez, New York City, NY and Iraq)
• The NY Times Special Edition (Steve Lambert, Andy Bichlbaum, Because We Want It, and hundreds of volunteers, New York City, NY)
• Meyers Bitter Survey (The National Bitter Melon Council, Boston, MA)
• Voices and Visions (Holly Ewald, Warwick, RI)

Complementing the exhibition, RISD | Public Engagement has programmed a series of discussions throughout the month of March around emergent and interconnected themes, featuring presentations by exhibition artists, informal panels, and class visits.  For updates on the schedule of events, artists’ bios and project descriptions, please visit:  www.risdpublicengagement.net

This exhibition is co-sponsored by RISD | Public Engagement and the Nelson Mandela: Honoring His Legacy initiative.

Nelson Mandela: Honoring his Legacy is Rhode Island School of Design’s year-long acknowledgement of the Life and Spirit of Nelson Mandela who, at age 90, is truly one of the world’s living treasures.   This initiative is a joint effort produced by the Offices of International Programs, Multicultural Affairs, and Public Engagement.

The RISD Office of Public Engagement was established in 2006 with the intention of deepening RISD’s commitment to public service, community-engaged practices in the arts, and collaborative partnerships.
RISD|Public Engagement is supported by the Rhode Island Foundation, AmeriCorps VISTA Campus Compact, AmeriCorps Learn and Serve