I Belong: Coffee and Community Dialogue
You Belong Here invites you to a community participatory panel discussion joined by (What is) Belonging exhibition artists on Sunday, December 17th, 2023! Join us for coffee, tea, y chocolate caliente, and pan dulce as we gather in a circle dialogue.
The intention for this space is to create critical and compassionate conversations centered
around the following prompts:
What does it mean to belong in a community?
How does art support a sense of belonging?
Who decides who belongs and who doesn't?
What role do artists play in supporting community belonging?
RSVP to attend and participate in this very important conversation and theme: What is belonging? We hope this gathering offers warmth and radical courage during an overwhelming global landscape, as all of us search to understand what it means to truly be in community and to stand up for those who feel excluded from that fundamental human right.
Deets:
This is a FREE community event
Coffee, Tea, Hot Chocolate, and pastries will be provided. We do encourage the community to bring treats to share. If you have a special family recipe you'd love to share with us, we will be thrilled.
This is a great opportunity to view the current group art showcase!
This is a participatory discussion. Your willingness to share is not obligated but encouraged.
About the Current Art Showcase: (What is) Belonging.
Our current group art showcase asked the participating artists to share with us what belonging means to them. Through their art, processes, experiences, activism, resistance, and personal stories they share their bold and brave messages of belonging.
You can check out our participating artists and artist showcase here: What Is Belonging Showcase
About the Facilitator & Curator:
Alejandro Martinez (He/El), curator of our current showcase, will be helping to facilitate this community discussion.
Alejandro is a Chicano, artist, educator and athlete from stolen and unceded Kumeyaay land, also known as San Diego/Tijuana border region. Through a decolonial abolitionist feminist lens, Martinez envisions a world where all people can exist free of persecution and harm. His sense of belonging has been supported through the frameworks of leaders and teachers like bell hooks, Richie Reseda and Angela Davis, who advocate/advocated and have dedicated their lives to the liberation of oppressed people.
In this exhibition and by the process of curation, Martinez hopes to bring together artists whose work and vision brings a true sense of belonging. During a time where many of our kin have been “un-belonged” from their homelands and their histories, Martinez sees an urgency to reconnect the meaning of community, safety and compassion through the artists present at You Belong Here’s 5 year anniversary exhibition.