The Mighty & The Mythic: Solo Show by Marisa Morán Jahn at University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
January 24, 2019 – March 2, 2019
Opening Reception Jan 24th (6:30-8 pm)
Location: Stamps Gallery, 201 S. Division Street, Ann Arbor MI 48104
For the first time, The Mighty and the Mythic brings together three key projects — CareForce (2012– ongoing), Bibliobandido (2010–ongoing), and MIRROR | MASK (2017–ongoing) — that highlights ACT Visiting Artist Marisa Morán Jahn (SMVisS ’07)‘s deep and meaningful collaborations with low-wage immigrants, caregivers, and youth. Jahn describes her use of play and humor as essential tools that enable her and her collaborators to portray their lives with dignity, critique power, and build momentum within their community.
Jahn’s practice is deeply informed by her own experiences growing up as a second-generation immigrant of Chinese and Ecuadorian heritage. For Jahn home was not a fixed place but an adaptation itself. Her varied vocational past as a schoolteacher, caretaker, woodshop cleaner-upper, lumber hauler, community organizer, and now university professor and mother informs the urgency in her work to find common ground between (her-)self and (an-)other, through the concepts of care and empathy. Each of the works in this exhibition highlights her deep engagement with the stories of everyday people, mundane routines, and a desire to build an inclusive society.
Marisa Morán Jahn: the Mighty and the Mythic celebrates and acknowledges the daily struggles and minor victories of the 99 percent that make up the spirit of our society in the twenty-first century.
As part of this midcareer retrospective, Marisa Morán Jahn will also be giving a lecture.
Unraveling Power Through Art, Play, and Hijinks
Thursday, January 24, 2019
5:10pm at the historic Michigan Theater, located at 603 E. Liberty Street in downtown Ann Arbor.
Free and open to the public.
As part of the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor’s annual Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Symposium which in 2019 addresses the theme of “unravel”, Marisa Morán Jahn will speak about her work as an artist and filmmaker, creating imaginative works with low-wage workers, immigrants, women, and youth. Previous and upcoming speakers in the Penny Stamps Lecture Series include Carrie Mae Weems, David Adjaye, Carolee Schneeman, Xu Bing, Yvonne Rainer, Hito Steyerl, Christo, and others.
