DIASPORAS AND DREAMS, ALLEGHENY COLLEGE, JANUARY 25 – MARCH 11, 2011

Allegheny College’s 2010-2011 annual theme is “Global Citizenship,” but there is no agreement about what constitutes a “global citizen.” In this exhibition we propose that diasporic peoples, whatever the reason for leaving their homelands, are as close as one gets to finding a such a citizen. “Diasporas and Dreams,” featured works by a variety of artists: Bonnie Donohue, a Boston-based multimedia artist who creates photographic panoramas of abandoned military installations in Vieques, Puerto Rico, to recount the displacement of fishermen and farmers; Rebecca Heyl, an artist and human rights activist based in Boston and Perugia, Italy, who has conducted photographic interviews with Jews and Muslims living on both sides of a separation barrier being constructed by Israel; Andrew Ellis Johnson, a Pittsburgh-based artist whose work explores the continued construction of Israeli settlements in Palestinian territories; Vasia Markides, a Cypriot-American filmmaker whose 2008 documentary, “Hidden in the Sand,” chronicles the story of Famagusta, Cyprus, a city whose Greek Cypriot population evacuated in 1974 due to an invasion by the Turkish army; and Susanne Slavick, a Pittsburgh-based artist who creates paintings and other works by transforming photographs of wreckage created by American military actions in the Middle East.  CLICK HERE TO VIEW / DOWNLOAD EXHIBITION CATALOG PDF.