September 17th – October 30th, 2016
Opening – 7pm – 8pm, Saturday September 17th
This exhibition will be part of the Fabric of Freedom Festival.
Fabric of Freedom is a series of arts pro- grams that celebrate the diversity and cultural history of Greensboro, host city for the National Folk Festival (2015-2017). The Series is presented by Arts Greensboro and funded by a National Endowment for the Arts “Our Town” grant and co-sponsored by the AJ Fletcher Foundation and Lincoln Financial. Peace and Restoration for Self-Determination is an extension of artist Shani Peters’ recent work around self-determination and the African diaspora’s reclamation of its history and reorientation of its future. This body of work considers Black American’s history as it relates to cycles of resilience against social injustice in the U.S. through the Civil Rights era to present. This series utilizes historical and contemporary collaged photography, treated with a color pallet that mimics flames and sunsets, lavender incense oil, and light to evoke both a sense of healing and motivation for the continuing fight for equity. Through this work the artist is considering the role of restorative self-care in the context of collective political struggle, the paradoxical yet imperative challenge of locating peace amid turmoil.
Shani Peters
Shani Peters is a multi-disciplinary New York-based artist (b. Lansing, MI). Her work reflects interests in activism histories, media culture, and community building. She completed her B.A. at Michigan State University and her M.F.A. at The City College of NY. She has exhibited/presented work in the US and abroad, at the Schomburg Center for Black Culture and Research, The University of Michigan, at Seoul Art Space Geumcheon, and The National Gallery of Zimbabwe. She has completed residencies with MoCA Detroit, The Laundromat Project, Project Row Houses, apexart to Seoul S. Korea, LES Printshop, The Center for Book Arts and the Bronx Museum AIM Program. Peters work has appeared in the Art Papers Magazine and the New York Times. Her work has received support from the Foundation for Contemporary Arts, the Rauschenberg Foundation and the Rema Hort Mann Foundation. She is a 2015 Joan Mitchell Foundation Emerging Artist Grant recipient.