_ mapping within -- 2005

"essence of a person can only be known in a living relationship - the 'I' cannot exist without the 'thou'" - martin buber

Who am I? Where do I come from? Where am I going? These questions pulse throughout our lives, inviting us to explore the space between self, community, and the environment. In this searching, we all must navigate myriad paths, negotiating boundaries and endless expanses along the way. Education author and activist John Gardener describes identity as the assurance of knowing and being known, and he calls the loss of identity a failure in relationships between the individual and society. In a society where transmigration is increasingly more prevalent and media images incessantly pervade daily lives, the path of identity has become multifarious, generating even more perplexing questions that get at the core of being human.

University artists have created the Mapping Within Exhibition to incorporate the exploratory work of youth and adult artists that present interactions surrounding issues of identity. Together, artists explored notions of both interior and exterior maps for expressing edentity as an evolution as opposed to a fixed state of being. Essex Art you artists participated in activities drawing from multiple desciplines, composing a dialogue of interpretations of identity in transformation. In their exploration, the youth used text, audio, photography. The facilitating artists will respond by ordering, assembling, and incorporating their own work. This didactic, call and response interaction is meant to mimic similar paths of negotiation of self and other, as described by Martin Buber in defining the essence of a person.

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