NEW YORK, NY.- Fridman Gallery announced Sanctuary, a group exhibition examining root causes and psychological effects of displacement. The exhibition title refers to “sanctuary cities”, including New York, which are supposed to afford legal protection for immigrants, and, in a more general sense, to sanctuaries as physical and emotional safe spaces.

In recent years, the world has experienced unprecedented interconnectedness brought about by online communications, climate change, and the COVID pandemic. Seemingly, we are more networked and closer, more aware of technological and biological ties and risks that have universal effects., We have more access to information about global suffering than ever before, yet it has not translated into deeper empathy. Instead, we remain largely unmoved by the pain of others unless the threat directly touches our own nuclear families. Modernity brought about a shift away from communal reliance toward individual autonomy, valuing independence and mobility over group survival. This shift has persisted in our hyper-plugged-in and disconnected world lacking a new defining principle. Apparent proximity has not led to integration.

In fact, a backlash has occurred — nationalist politics have led to tighter restrictions on movement of people and goods, and to censorship of free expression. Human capacity for empathy actually may have diminished with the informational overload. Without empathy, unable to feel the conditions of others, we are unable to admit the shared responsibility for, and susceptibility to, those conditions. We are less inclined to learn, less likely to survive.

Immigrants and artists, channeling individual and collective experiences of trauma and healing, are messengers of powerful stories we can assimilate as our own. Sanctuary aims to create a space where a shared sense of displacement leads to shared empathy.

The exhibition features 16 artists of diverse backgrounds facing complexities of our times, including:

— Deprivation of rights: Heather Dewey-Hagborg’s comic-book detailing the story of the Pentagon whistleblower Chelsea Manning; Jared Owens’ stamp-and-soil paintings of prison yards; Spandita Malik’s photos of survivors of sexual violence in rural India, embroidered by the victims; The Photobridge Project’s documentation of NGOs in zones of wars and environmental disasters.

— Living between worlds: Alibaba Awrang’s calligraphy made on the U.S. military base in Qatar where his family escaped just as the Taliban conquered Afghanistan; Lewinale Havette’s depictions of grieving refugees from the civil war in Liberia; Lesia Khomenko’s painting of blurry footage from a Kamikaze drone approaching a soldier hiding in the trees; Jerome Lagarrigue’s scenes of Parisian street protests; Aura Satz’s lenticular closeups of a bullet entering and exiting a surface, forcing the viewer to walk “between the bullet and the hole”.

— Hope charged with precarity: Alexa Hatanaka’s and Dindga McCannon’s hand-sewn tapestries enveloping protagonists in the comfort of ancestral materials; Helena Kozuchowicz’s silhouettes longing for respite and connection; Will Maxen’s subtly shifting color fields linking emotions and memories; Samita Sinha’s meditative vocals resonating through the gallery’s 8-channel sound system; and Cynthia Alberto’s handwoven “Sanctuary” on the gallery’s facade.

Exhibition Programming

Two feature-length films will be screened: Dana Kavelina’s The Lemberg Machine – stop-motion animation addressing the 1941 pogroms in Lviv from the perspective of the resurrected victims, and Aura Satz’s Preemptive Listening in which 20 contemporary musicians reinterpret the sound of the siren as a prompt to imagine a less alarming future. Additional programming will be announced.

Featured Artists: Cynthia Alberto, Alibaba Awrang, Heather Dewey-Hagborg, Alexa Hatanaka, Lewinale Havette, Fidelis Joseph, Lesia Khomenko, Helena Kozuchowicz, Jerome Lagarrigue, Spandita Malik, Will Maxen, Dindga McCannon, Jared Owens, Photobridge Project, Aura Satz, Samita Sinha