Peace Exhibit

EPIDEMIC PEACE IMAGERY

Gardens Gallery, Madison

M-F 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Independent Living Inc.,602 N Segoe Road, 608-274-7900, www.indepenliving.com

The collaborative exhibit titled "Epidemic Peace Imagery: An Expanding Exhibition of Peace Works by Writers & Visual Artists" features hundreds of artworks, each representing a moment of peace, some combined with poetry or other text.

The concept of the exhibit was developed by Madison visual artist Russell Gardner, peace activist Claire Box and poet Robin Chapman in 2003. The purpose is to spread peace images to counter the ubiquitous images of war and violence, and inspire people to envision a way to a peaceful world.

"We hope that peace imagery spreads over people and replaces "the good war image" that now dominates our foreign policy," said Russell Gardner.

The project has grown from 43 entries four years ago to nearly 600 to date. The exhibit has been displayed simultaneously in venues from California to Wisconsin. Contributing artists are from 56 Wisconsin communities, 30 states and 24 countries. Gardner invites local artists to share their vision of peace with a poem, other words, visual art or a combination.

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In this solo exhibition, Seattle artist Chris Jordan looks at contemporary American culture through the way that we primarily see society portrayed in the media - pure statistics.

Each image portrays a quantity of something - prison uniforms that represent the number of people incarcerated per year, plastic bags used by consumers every five seconds or handguns representing the number of gun-related deaths that happened in 2004.

Through the use of images rather than numbers alone, Jordan hopes that his work will reach out to the public in an attempt to communicate visually the problems that people in the U.S. are facing. Statistics can feel abstract and many times make it difficult for people to connect with topics that they feel only vaguely relate to them; this project thus visually examines these vast, numerical measures of our society.

Each large-scale piece is a detailed print that is assembled from thousands of smaller photographs of the actual subject matter that Jordan is discussing in his work.

UWM Student Union, Campus Level, Room W199
2200 E. Kenwood Blvd.
Milwaukee, WI 53211
414.229.6310

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