Raise 251
August 10, 2018 – December 14, 2018
Featuring new commissions exploring hidden or overlooked issues affecting community health in Mobile, Raise 251 aims to educate and empower Mobile’s citizens by enhancing their capacity to better participate in decision-making about their health.
Taking traditional “photovoice” methods of community-based participatory research as its starting point, this exhibition and community initiative has been developed by Alabama Contemporary in partnership with the University of South Alabama’s Center for Healthy Communities (CHC).
Raise 251 provides four Community Health Advocates, representing health-disparate neighborhoods across Mobile, with one-on-one mentorship and support in bringing the issues facing their communities to the wider public. Photographs by Barbara Hodnett, Frewin Osteen, Bomani Williams, and Sheena Williams will be presented alongside new commissions from Jamey Grimes, Wanda Sullivan, and Pinky MM Bass that amplify and interpret their unique insights and perspectives.
Accompanying the exhibition, Alabama Contemporary will hold a series of workshops examining contemporary issues surrounding nutrition, growth, and community change. In addition, photographer Vincent Lawson will lead a series of workshops specifically designed to engage local public school students and Boys & Girls Club youth in the power of photographic storytelling.
Jamey Grimes’ immersive installation Transpiration illustrates the gravity-defying movement of water through a plant. Light, projections, and a sprawling expanse of melted plastic reaching toward the ceiling model organic patterns and mechanisms of growth. In Synthetic Naturals, Wanda Sullivan digitally-manipulates photographs of Deep South flora to create a new series of kaleidoscopic oil paintings exploring technology’s role in the diminishing health of the planet. In Linkage, Pinky MM Bass collaborates with her son, Florida State University professor Dr. Hank W. Bass — who researches genetics at cellular and molecular levels — to create an installation featuring maize plants and photography alongside a series of electron photomicrographs adorned with the artist’s intricate stitching.