ARTifACTs: We Almost Didn't Make It

Join Center on Contemporary Art (CoCA), January 20 to February 24, featuring the activist art collective, ARTifACTs, with their interactive and generative gallery installation, We Almost Didn’t Make It. The exhibit focuses on the outcome of our choices in a time where the effects of our participation in the destruction of our planet seems so short-sighted. In a game-like installation, visitors will be presented with work tables covered with “ingredients” and “recipes” that make an artifact which represents aspects of our current world that may not exist in the next 150 years. Each participant will place a commitment to an action into that artifact that will help future generations not only exist, but thrive.

The lead artist on this project is Beverly Naidus, installation artist and Professor of Interdisciplinary Arts at the University of Washington, Tacoma. Other ARTifACTs members include Carol Rashawna Williams, Ed Mast, Camella Cooper and Matthew Hamilton. The show endeavors to foster a continual dialog about ways to move past dystopian thinking and continue to be resilient activists. As visitors create and explore artifacts and read the commitments to actions, there is an opportunity to transform rage, frustration, grief and despair into fuel for creative activism. Two workshops will be facilitated to more deeply address these issues on Saturday, January 20 and February 3.

The ARTifACTs collective emerged from a series of “Arts for Social Change” discussion groups held in Beverly Naidus’ Seattle studio. The collective was formed to respond to a variety of social issues from the perspective of our descendants. While a first exhibition for this ideation, We Almost Didn’t Make It has been in development over the past three years since the group’s inception. Previous projects include “The Healing Forest” for Seattle Design Festival 2017 and “Where Once There Were Cages”, a walking performance and art event around Seattle's Youth Prison.

Credit: Exhibition overview from museum website