(Rochester, MN) — August 2nd, 2023 — Counterspaces began at the University of Minnesota Rochester (UMR) as a collective healing project for community members who have been impacted by the existing and increasing acts of racialized violence against Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders and Black, Indigenous, and People of Color. Curated by Rochester Art Center Curator Zoe Cinel and UMR Assistant Professor Yuko Taniguchi, the exhibit is dedicated for listening to the stories, thoughts, and feelings of marginalized community members. Counterspaces is intended to be safe social space which offers support and enhance feelings of belonging in marginalized individuals existing in spaces that are not made with them in mind. Write exhibit organizers: “A counterspace is much more than just one of safety. It is a place of possibility for empowerment and transformation. And it is more than just a space of survival; as it is a space where critiques of and understandings on how oppression operates at the local level are collectively understood and acted upon at the larger, structural one.”
The exhibit is available August 8 through November 30, 2023.
