If You Remember, I’ll Remember

If You Remember, I’ll Remember is an invitation to think about the present while reflecting on specific incidents and moments of the past. This exhibition presents a selection of works by artists Kristine Aono (b. 1960), Shan Goshorn (b. 1957), Samantha Hill (b. 1974), McCallum & Tarry (active 1998-), Dario Robleto (b. 1972), and Marie Watt (b. 1967) that investigate aspects of 19th and 20th century North American history and resonate with contemporary concerns about war, racism, and xenophobia. The featured artists employ strategies that are more poetic than didactic, and pose questions about the functions and processes of memory, remembering, and memorialization. Through engagement with specific historic artifacts — for instance documents, photographs, sound recordings, and oral histories— these artists have created aesthetically compelling works that ask viewers to reimagine the continuum between the past and the present.

The assembled works employ, to varying degrees, individual stories, personal connections, and intimate scale. They explore a wide ranging, but conceptually linked set of issues, including war as a chronic phenomena in United States history; Japanese-American internment camp experiences and their aftermath; Native American boarding school experiences and broken treaties between the United States and native nations; violence against African-Americans; and the legislation of race.

Credit: Exhibition overview from museum website