All Things Equal takes on ‘isms’

The Hedreen Gallery collaborated with the Seattle Art Museum to put on its first show of the year.

The show, "All Things Equal," is an exploration of three politically resonant terms. The terms capitalism, socialism and terrorism were given to 20 different contemporary artists from different countries and cultural backgrounds. The artists were to take the three terms, look them up in their native dictionaries or encyclopedias, translate them back into English and provide a definition of how their country or encyclopedia defines these words.

The show is all typography—no paintings, sculptures, structures or designs.

Throughout the space, the typography is hung in alphabetical order by country. As one moves from the "A's" all the way to the "Z's," the viewer is provided with different countries definitions of the three words.

Freshman Asha DuMonthier was amazed by the shocking similarities of the definitions from different countries as well as the differences between definitions.

"It was interesting to see the countries different perspectives on the definitions of the three words," said DuMonthier. "It made me think about how I define those three words in my own life."

Catharina Manchanda co-curated the show and is also the new modern art curator at the Seattle Art Museum.

"The idea for this show came originally after 9/11. I was living in New York at the time and for the first time I witnessed people just raw with emotion and the need to come together," said Manchanda.

According to Manchanda, after this traumatic experience, the world was going to have to redefine the word "terrorism."

"We were about to witness a huge movement in the terminology we were so used to...With all the different cultures in the world, I knew there were going to be different understandings of the word ‘terrorism.' So I had to continually think about how we would attack the issue."

It wasn't until Manchanda met Whitney Ford-Terry and Jessica Powers, the curators of Seattle U's Hedreen Gallery, that she knew she had found the place to open this show.

"The experimental space we have here really allowed for some outside the box thinking," Manchanda said. "So in late June, we started contacting artists and asking them to participate."

The next question became which words to use.

"We really wanted each ‘ism' to be significant. Capitalism and terrorism were obvious choices. The harder choice was choosing between socialism and communism. We decided that the more relevant word in this post 9/11 world was socialism."

With 20 different artists from all around the world coming from different cultural backgrounds, the variety of responses was amazing. However, not all the definitions were easy to come by.

"When we talked with the Russian artist Olga Chernysheva, she explained to us that when she originally looked for the definitions online in Russia, she couldn't find them," Manchanda said. "It turns out Russia was censoring these searches. She ended up having to go back to her parents' home to find the definitions in an old edition of a Russian dictionary."

The Russian artist was not the only one who dealt with problems with censorship. Lee Mingwei, a Chinese American, reached out to his sister living in China to go to the library and find up-to-date definitions of capitalism, socialism and terrorism. She made an effort to copy the definitions out of Chinese encyclopedias to send back to her brother, but when she tried to leave with these copies, government officials stopped her. She was forbidden to leave with copies of the definitions or check out the encyclopedia. She resorted to memorizing the definitions and sent her brother what she could remember about the three words.

"It is interesting to see how some countries have huge sensitivities to these words," Manchanda said.

Some artists sent texts explaining what the word meant in their countries or cultures rather than a dictionary or encyclopedia definition. Others, like South Korean artist Nancy Hwang, found all of their definitions through Wikipedia. Hwang translated the three words into Korean then back to English, as instructed, and found that the differences between the English and Korean definitions were huge.

"Nancy sees Wikipedia as something that is so relevant in our society today, and by using

it as her source, she wants it to become part of the conversation," Manchanda said.

"Why use Wikipedia? Why use any source? Why choose

one source over the other. That's the dialogue she wants inspire among artists and viewers of the arts."

The show is a chance to see art that not only educates but also inspires the viewer to think about how capitalism, socialism and terrorism affect our world today.

"All Things Equal" will be at the Hedreen Gallery in the Lee Center from Oct. 5 to Nov. 30.

James may be reached at cashmanj@seattleu.edu