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The God-given Art of Gloria Garrett

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We Will Not Be Silent: Art Transforming Rape Culture from October 30 to December 15, 2025, at The Stamp Gallery | University of Maryland, College Park | Written by Trinitee Tatum

When asked why art, Gloria Garrett responded: “Art has always been there. I believed God gave me art to share and make a difference in the world.” From an early age, Garrett understood the transformative power of art. “Art can be used to unite people,” she continued, “it can inspire them to open their hearts an[d] imagine a world of peace and joy. Art can help you heal from trauma and life challenges. It can soothe your soul.” Known as the “Mother of Makeup Art,” Garrett was a Baltimore-based poet, performer, and storyteller whose practice was rooted in collaboration and care. Working closely with local communities, she harnessed art’s capacity for healing, turning creative labor into a shared spiritual and social practice. Her multimedia work was deeply intertwined with her Christian faith, which served not only as a source of personal refuge but also as a wellspring for collective restoration.

In a 2021 interview with Nicole Caracia of the Chesapeake Arts Center, Garrett recalled a moment of profound loss: “In 2005 my nephew died suddenly. I asked God to bring color back into my life. My mother gave me some makeup, and I figured out how to paint with it.” Out of grief emerged a new visual language. Makeup, the object of both tactile intimacy and confidence, yet frequently discarded, became her medium of renewal. Through teaching others to create, Garrett found that healing was not solitary; it was expansive, moving through herself, her students, and the world they inhabited together. Garrett’s work participates in a lineage of Black women artists for whom visual storytelling both bears witness and liberates. Her practice recalls visual griots such as Clementine Hunter, whose paintings of everyday Southern Black life infused feminism, spirituality, and racialized memory into acts of quiet resistance. Like Hunter, Garrett turns to the body of Christ and the sustaining power of faith as affirmations of collective survival and as sites through which liberation can be imagined and enacted.

Gloria Garrett, Monument Quilt square, 2018, Mixed media on fabric.

The Monument Quilt, organized by FORCE: Upsetting Rape Culture, was a community-based art project that collected 3,000 stories from survivors of sexual violence. These stories were written, painted, and stitched onto red quilt squares and displayed in highly visible public spaces, transforming private grief into collective witness. Garrett’s quilt square, located in the lower left, was created in collaboration with seniors she taught at Sacred Heart, grounding the work in intergenerational care and shared making. For Garrett, the act of naming these stories unfolds across both personal and communal registers, affirming art-making as a spiritual, relational practice. Her quilt addresses the viewer directly, asserting their worth despite circumstance: “You are loved and beautiful.” In each corner, the words “You,” “Are,” “Not,” and “Alone” accent the large words, invoking a persistent, collective embrace. Though not overtly religious, Garrett’s contribution gestures toward a theology of togetherness, where survival and the possibility of liberation emerge not in isolation, but through the gathered strength of many.

Gloria Garrett, Be Joyful collage, 2018, Collage, makeup, paper, photocopies.

Intimate in scale, Garrett’s Be Joyful Collage, composed of collage, makeup, paper, and photocopies, is saturated with color and texture. Divided into several sections, each space holds a phrase that reads not as demands, but invocations and affirmations. Most of the text stands out against the colorful sensations of the background. These phrases– “God is love,” “believe in miracles,” “count blessings”– function as affirmations: public-facing, faith-rooted declarations that circulate hope through shared language. The work’s tactile, oil-pastel-like surface echoes Garrett’s stated affinity for the French Impressionists, privileging sensation, intimacy, and emotional resonance. At the same time, her use of makeup introduces a subtle gendered register without confining the work to overt femininity. The medium itself becomes a theology of sustainability: materials often discarded are repurposed into vessels of care and beauty. In Be Joyful Collage, faith is not monumental, but tender, held in the palm of a hand.

Gloria Garrett, Page from Advice for life workbook, 2019, Photocopies of drawings, makeup paintings, activities, and poetry.

Garrett’s workbooks recur as insistent symbols of knowledge in motion, signaling her deep investment in younger generations and in the work of intergenerational networks. Hand-drawn and assembled from photocopied drawings, makeup paintings, activities, and poetry, these books invite touch, participation, reflections, and return. One workbook, I Can’t We Can, centers on a large yellow Christian cross on its cover, flaked by the book’s title on either side. The visual tension between these declarations stages a movement away from isolation toward collectivity, from limitation toward shared capacity, implicitly through Christ. Created in collaboration with On Our Own, Inc., a Baltimore-based behavioral health advocacy organization, and People Encouraging People, a nonprofit providing behavioral healthcare and support, the workbook further situates Garrett’s practice at the intersection of art, healing, and social action. Here, faith is not abstract, but a catalyst for alliance and advocacy. The work affirms, again and again, the transformative power of collective care, of a transition from “I” toward “we.”

Maternal advice appears alongside calls for paid parental leave and equal pay, entwining Christian faith with demands for structural care and change. Throughout Garrett’s work runs a resistance to Black nonbeing. “Please let’s remember,” she implores on one page, “when there’s life, there’s hope… there’s hope in these places because there is life, and when there is life, there’s the Lord.” Her words echo James H. Cone’s assertion in A Black Theology of Liberation that “Black theology is a theology of survival,” one that emerges from a community whose existence is continually threatened by erasure. The Black Church’s orientation toward liberation, as Cone reminds us, is modeled on the life and ministry of Jesus and demands a commitment to the well-being of others– both within and beyond the church’s walls. Garrett’s work embodies this ethic. Through intimate materials, collaborative processes, and faith-informed storytelling, she reengages the visual archive of Christianity to imagine new futures for Black communities, and especially for Black women. Her practice reveals how representations of Christian imagery can carry expansive visions of care, survival, and spiritual possibility.

Gloria Garrett’s work is included in We Will Not Be Silent: Art Transforming Rape Culture at The Stamp Gallery of the University of Maryland, College Park, from October 30 to December 15, 2025.

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“Orientation”: Meaning in Memory and the Immediate Surrounding

This is a long exposure from April 23 to May 21, 2025 at The Stamp Gallery | University of Maryland, College Park | Written by Jasjot Kaur Gill

Imagine extracting two decades of your life from your memory into a set of photographs. What would remain? A few clear shots of joy or pain, emptiness or vague fragments? Years reduced to colors and shapes, objects, repetitive paths? Fleeting moments preserved, while others slip through entirely?

Jeffrey Hampshire’s Orientation, from the ‘This is a Long Exposure’ exhibition at STAMP Gallery, asks how do we carry memory, from the past and present, and still moments through time? How do we remember the places we pass through every day on our walk back and forth from work to home, and what do those visuals say about our relationships with our natural surroundings, space, ourselves, and our story?

Orientation is an evocative visual journal created from the artist Jeffrey’s own daily journey from home to work, college, still moments captured in between, caught by the attention of the eye. In the series of small photographs lined up in rows, some moments are subconsciously registered by being on a repetitive path, others a new experience releasing dopamine while some a connection to the past. Each photograph documents a pause—a glance, a texture, a corner of his workspace, a moment of peace and silence in nature, or a still object of the world that caught his attention. And yet, as a whole, the series of photographs refuses to be purely documentary, placed in a jumbled manner with no direct connection to a timeline. These are not moments captured for the sake of memory, echoes of one’s values and perception of the immediate surroundings, residues and questions. Jeffrey arranges the photographs intuitively, allowing opaque and transparent layers, visual disruptions, and blank spaces to guide our experience through the installation.

These photographs reflect the unnoticed, and noticed in our lives: the cluttered stairwells, the roads and signage, the plain sky silently watching over, the voice echoing through the pipes, wires and roads, the trees seen at a quick glance, a delay to work by the fallen tree. And yet, through repetition and scale, these “insignificant” still moments become portals to the viewer’s perception. As you view these photographs you ponder upon moments that don’t register at first but linger in the subconscious.

Orientation, by Jeffrey Hamphire, 2025. Inkjet print, transparency film, projection.

In an age where headphones filter out atmospheric sound and our commutes blur into our subconscious memory, Orientation is an alternative: a meditation on the act of seeing, seeing differently, seeing through time and space, seeing in different dimensions. It asks us how we interact with natural and man-made environments, how we disregard, how we dismiss—and how even forgotten, unnoticed visuals may hold space and meaning, appearing on our memory board.

Some images seem wiped out of existence, while others faded and abstract—reflecting the way memory functions. Do we really recall that morning sky, or just the feeling of having been late? Do we remember the street corner, or only the stress tied to it? Do we remember the conversation we had on the side of the road, or was it a made up memory, a moment from the past perhaps? We walk the same paths each day, yet something always changes. Do we even realise this, the weather, our thoughts, a detour from a construction zone we didn’t expect. The duality captured through the tension between routine and change makes the viewer wonder, and look more closely.

Standing in front of this piece, I found myself thinking, I believe I have some similar images stored in my photographic memory. Who else has walked this road? Do our memories overlap and what are they thinking as they walk through it? It is a strange thought perhaps, but strangely comforting to know how connected we are with others in the environment around us, if only to pause and pay more attention.

In Orientation, the artist Jeffrey Hampshire gives a layered, intuitive, form to that memory and invites us to reconsider the invisible architecture of our lives. To listen, to see, and maybe to remember with a renewed perspective.

Jeffery Hampshire and Julia Reising’s work is included in This is a long exposure at The Stamp Gallery of the University of Maryland, College Park, from April 23 to May 21. For more information on these artists, find them at https://www.instagram.com/j.hampshire_art/ and https://www.juliareising.com. For more information on This is a long exposure and related events, visit https://stamp.umd.edu/centers/stamp_gallery.

Current Exhibition, Uncategorized

The Sweetness of Liberation: Reclamation of the Watermelon as a Symbol of Autonomy in Schroeder Cherry’s Open Ended Narratives


Open Ended Narratives from February 18th to April 5th, 2025, at The Stamp Gallery | University of Maryland, College Park | Written by Rachel Schmid-James

Just as the cogs of a machine must fit together seamlessly to work, an exhibition must build and mesh into something greater than the individual pieces. In Schroeder Cherry’s current show, Open Ended Narratives, the themes emerge like threads, twisting together to create a fluid experience. While certain motifs show up consistently throughout pieces, the Baltimore-based artist is adamant that he has no interest in telling one story. “There is no one story; viewers bring their own experiences to each piece,” Cherry writes in his artist statement. 

The idea that an artist has one message they are attempting to convey is simplistic and confining, as art can mean many things to different people. However, this is not to say that these thematic elements have no context outside of the viewer’s own. The image of the watermelon pops up more than seventeen times throughout the works displayed at the gallery. If the viewer has no knowledge of the historical context Cherry is referencing, the significance of the symbol may go unnoticed. 

The watermelon stereotype first emerged in the Southern United States in the 1860s, shortly after the end of the Civil War and the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation. Former enslavers and Confederate sympathizers were flailing to combat the beginnings of the Reconstruction era, and observing that many formerly enslaved people were growing watermelons on their farms for profit, created a caricature to represent African Americans as immature and dirty. Over time this farce of a statement worked its way into generations of people, becoming a belief that many learned casually through subliminal messages. It appeared in caricatures on children’s television shows and other representations of minstrelsy. In contemporary history, politicians continue to push this stereotype among others to draw in racist supporters.

Unfortunately, the original meaning of the watermelon has become tainted with these narratives, but the African diaspora has worked to restore its original meaning in the community. Before white supremacists got their hands on the symbol of the watermelon, it stood as a message of liberation and autonomy for formerly enslaved individuals in the South. Cherry’s work reclaims the image, raising it into idolatry, a symbol of resistance, while also planting the seeds for a more positive interpretation of it for current and future Black children. 

In Cherry’s piece Twins (Future Voter Series), the watermelon takes the form of the two young girls’ swimsuits. They stand with their arms around each other, beaming at an invisible camera. They are proud of their swimsuits, making no effort to hide and instead exuding excitement over being seen in them. While each viewer is invited to add their own details to these girls’ stories, it cannot be said that they yet understand the burden of the stereotype. They become a symbol of hope for the present, that we may someday completely filter out the muddled narrative created by hate, and return it to its revolutionary roots.

Schroeder Cherry, Future Voters #12, Twins, 2021, mixed media on wood.

The question of divinity is also raised in Cherry’s wall sconce pieces, which depict Black figures as one of the holiest symbols in Christianity: angels. Combining this with the symbol of the watermelon, most notably in the piece Angel Sconce #11, Red Wings, which features the image prominently throughout. Angels are also a symbol with a racist past, often depicting the ideals of whiteness as divine and darker skin as evil. By synthesizing these broader motifs into a piece that seems to reach outward with its curling pieces and a serious face that stares back at you, Cherry continues to weave together strings that connect the ideas of the past and present to those of the future. 

Schroeder Cherry, Angel Sconce #11, Red Wings, 2024, mixed media on wood.

Through these works, Cherry takes the history of a harmful stereotype into his hands and melds it into a poetic emblem of joy for the African diaspora. These symbols contribute to the building of a foundation for the narratives that Cherry threads the needle for but never ties off the stitch. 

Current Exhibition

Framing the Narrative: Access, Memory, and Identity in Schroeder Cherry’s Art

Open Ended Narratives from February 18th to April 5th, 2025, at The Stamp Gallery | University of Maryland, College Park | Written by Noa Nelson

Schroeder Cherry’s mixed-media assemblages do more than capture a moment in time—they interrogate the ways history, culture, and personal experience intersect. Using found objects like keys, locks, playing cards, and discarded picture frames, Cherry constructs layered compositions that question who has access to spaces, how identity is framed by society, and what stories are remembered or erased. His work invites viewers to engage actively, bringing their own interpretations and histories into the narrative.

Traditionally, frames act as boundaries, defining the edges of an image and enclosing it within a fixed space. But in Cherry’s work, frames are more than decorative—they become part of the story. They act as textured, layered elements that shape how we move through an image, drawing attention to what is included, what is left out, and how we are meant to engage with the subject matter.

Shroeder Cherry, Salvador Series #8, Desejar (Wish), 2024. Mixed media on wood; 32 x 24 inches. Photo Credit: Júlia Sodré

Cherry often acquires frames from a framer friend, repurposing discarded samples and integrating them into his work. This use of found materials mirrors the larger themes of his assemblages: history is not static, and objects—like stories—carry meaning beyond their intended function. His frames don’t just enclose a narrative, they challenge viewers to consider how images are constructed and how context shapes perception.

One of Cherry’s recurring themes is the adultification of Black children—the societal tendency to perceive Black youth as older, less innocent, and more responsible for their actions than their 

white peers. His work forces us to confront the unsettling question: At what age does a Black child transition from being seen as a child to being perceived as a threat?

This question is particularly poignant when viewed through Cherry’s layered, textured compositions. His frames become both a protective border and a confining structure, much like the ways society simultaneously scrutinizes and controls Black bodies. By incorporating objects like playing cards—a metaphor for the unpredictability of life and the unequal hands dealt to individuals—Cherry highlights the systemic biases that dictate how Black children are viewed and treated in different spaces.

Cherry’s travels, particularly to Salvador, Brazil, have deeply influenced his work. As home to the largest population of African diaspora outside of Africa, Salvador’s history is inseparable from colonialism, the transatlantic slave trade, and the ongoing complexities of race and identity.

Shroeder Cherry, Salvador Series #2, Four Drummers, 2024. Mixed media on wood; 33 x 32.5 inches. Photo Credit: Júlia Sodré

In his work, Cherry integrates symbols of access—keys and locks—to question who is permitted entry into certain spaces and who is kept out. A small bucket at his desk collects donated materials, later incorporated into his pieces, reinforcing the idea that history is built from what is left behind. His depictions of barbershops—intimate spaces of community and vulnerability—highlight places where Black men find both refuge and connection. The act of allowing another man to hold a razor to one’s throat speaks to an unspoken trust, a contrast to the often hyper-policed existence of Black men in public spaces.

Cherry’s use of playing cards underscores the unpredictability of life and the systemic structures that dictate opportunity. Cards hold different values depending on the game, just as people’s worth is often measured differently based on race, class, and circumstance. His works challenge viewers to consider: What do you do with the hand you’re dealt in life?

Similarly, keys function as a powerful metaphor for access and exclusion. Keys open doors, but they also lock them. They represent opportunity, security, and control—who gets to enter, who is kept out, and what barriers exist between individuals and the spaces they seek to inhabit. People form deep attachments to their keys, a subconscious acknowledgment of their importance in navigating daily life. By incorporating these objects into his work, Cherry asks us to consider the power structures that determine who holds the keys to opportunity and who remains locked out.

Shroeder Cherry, Salvador Series #3, Pausa, 2024. Mixed media on wood; 29 x 36 inches. Photo Credit: Júlia Sodré

Schroeder Cherry’s work is deeply layered, both visually and conceptually. His art challenges the ways identity is framed—how history, access, and systemic biases shape the experiences of Black communities. Through his use of mixed media, he reframes symbols often associated with exclusion, reclaiming them as tools of empowerment and storytelling.

Just as life unfolds in unpredictable chapters, Cherry’s work resists neat conclusions. His compositions remain open-ended, inviting viewers to bring their own stories, experiences, and interpretations into the frame. And in doing so, he reminds us that narratives are never static—they are constructed, challenged, and reframed with each new perspective.

Current Exhibition

Wearing Interiors and Exteriors: Tori Ellison’s Shell

​​The dress is a staple of clothing history. Its form is associated with femininity, adornment, beauty, and formality.  Tori Ellison has historically worked with the dress motif since the 1990s, using them thematically for self-perception and bodily identities. As seen with her other featured dress piece, Burnt Dress (1993) embodies the ideas of restoration and rebirth through charred remains. The contrasting outlines serve as a reminder of the past and room for new beginnings. 

Tori Ellison, Burnt Dress, 1993, Drawing, Charcoal, Acrylic Polymer, Ash, and Fabric on Paper, 50 x 38 in.

Ellison continues to explore this shape with Shell (2010), a wall-mounted paper dress sculpture. Shell immediately captures attention the way it “floats” on display, as if it’s worn by an invisible being. There is an indisputable mystery and allure surrounding the piece’s voice. We Live in the Sky features Ellison’s interpretation of metamorphosis through Shell’s commentary on personal growth and discovery. 

Tori Ellison, Shell, 2010, Paper, Wire, and Acrylic, app. 5.5 x 45 x 2 in.

We Live in the Sky includes works with the spoken and written word. With accompanying textual pieces like Ellison’s  Sky Writing (2024) and Windows in the Sky (2024), Shell stands out as a piece without words. However, Ellison still gives the dress a voice of its own. Immediately, viewers will notice the spaces carved out within the layered paper. The positive and negative spaces that the paper dress occupies call for a larger inquiry about the intention of this piece. Though its exterior beauty is its main element, it is also important to note the interiors. The organic shapes, layering, and curves of the dress create an invitation instead of a rejection. Ellison’s piece finds itself in a space of temporariness. Shifting localities and movement as the paper medium adapts to the surrounding air. Despite the stillness of the room, Shell stands unafraid. It commands a certain vibe that almost asks for one to keep looking. Like the shells you may find on the beach, Shell’s pearlized surface is a delicate exterior holding untold stories inside.

Shell gives its paper fabric a new form outside of its traditional 2D planes. Perhaps it serves as a literal shell for interpretation. Can we see ourselves inside the dress? Even the name Shell, implies an emptiness to be filled. In a space about displacement and identity, what can our exterior and interior selves find within Shell? Can we find a home in spaces unconventional to us? Beyond gendered clothing, Shell offers a found shield against the changing world. It provides the mind a space to grow into, a hidden place to house one’s vulnerabilities, secrets, and memories. 

Since the beginning of human history, paper has been used to account. It is not far off to assume that paper and humanity are deeply intertwined. In line with conversations surrounding transformation, it leads to a major question: how does paper align with the self? The properties of paper can be closely associated with conceptualizing consciousness since paper can be created, changed, and destroyed. Even the way paper is made, it is taken from trees, turned into ​​wood pulp, and then pressed and dried. As paper, its form is impermanent and yet fixed, having the infinite capacity to become something new. Shell embodies this, as the living and ever-cyclical nature of paper actualizes the nature of identity. The self is never stagnant, it is to be molded, written on, and hung out to dry. 

Tori Ellison, Shell, 2010, Paper, Wire, and Acrylic, app. 5.5 x 45 x 2 in.

A dress is expected to form one’s body. We expect it to highlight the best and hide the worst. However, Ellison calls to honoring the uncomfortable places not explored. In connecting body, mind, and identity, she asks us to reevaluate the ways we view ourselves in the idealist of shapes. Perhaps we can all learn to wear Ellison’s Shell, to make it a home, to remodel it, and eventually outgrow it.

Tori Ellison’s work is included in We Live in the Sky: Home, Displacement, Identity at The Stamp Gallery of the University of Maryland, College Park, from October 16 to December 7, 2024. For more information on Tori Ellison, visit https://www.toriellison.com/. For more information on We Live in the Sky: Home, Displacement, Identity and related events, visit https://stamp.umd.edu/centers/stamp_gallery.

Current Exhibition

Window to Earth

We Live in the Sky: Home, Displacement, Identity from October 16 to December 7, 2024 at The Stamp Gallery | University of Maryland, College Park | Written by Oliver Foley

We Live in the Sky is an exhibition dominated by the tones of paper and black ink, with the vast majority of the works on paper using an achromatic palette. Amongst these works, Tori Ellison’s Windows in the Sky (2024) stands out as one of the exhibition’s only multicolor screenprints. Screen prints only have two discrete values of color: there are areas where the screen allows ink through and areas where the photoresist is hardened and the ink cannot pass through. In order to create the illusion of grays and color gradients, this piece employs a technique called halftone. Halftone prints transform an image into a grid of colored dots, and these dots are scaled in size based on how much of a color should be perceived. In Windows in the Sky, the paper is black, so the space left between the halftone dots of the color results in a darkening of the perceived color. The areas of intersection where the different colored screens meet appears lighter and more saturated, since more of the black background is obscured by the ink.

Tori Ellison, Windows in the Sky (2024)

This dark, yet colorful piece is hung opposite from Tori Ellison’s Sky Writing (2024). The airy, freely floating Sky Writing hangs in stark contrast to the earthy tones of Windows in the Sky. The parchment is semi-translucent like a cloud covering the sun, sparsely adorned with the shadow-like tendrils of calligraphy. One of the central sheets of Sky Writing even uses the same screen as Windows in the Sky, but in a neutral black rather than a hued ink. The bird of the earth and bird of the sky face each other in the gallery space.  The two pieces mirror each other in many ways, including literally: Windows in the Sky is enclosed in a highly reflective glass frame, which almost always reflects the lights of the space and Sky Writing. At times the dark print is overpowered by the reflections, like the reflections of sky on a lake. Standing in this space between Sky Writing and Windows in the Sky conjures up the feeling of floating amidst dense clouds and looking down onto earth through a small window. 

Tori Ellison, Sky Writing (2024)

Tori Ellison’s work is included in We Live in the Sky at The Stamp Gallery of the University of Maryland, College Park, from October 16th to December 7th, 2024. For more information on Ellison, visit https://www.toriellison.com/. For more information on We Live in the Sky and related events, visit https://stamp.umd.edu/articles/stamp_gallery_presents_we_live_sky_home_displacement_identity or visit our instagram @stampgalleryumd.

Current Exhibition

Finding Home: Mami Takahashi’s Cage Mentality

We Live in the Sky: Home, Displacement, Identity from October 16 to December 7, 2024 at The Stamp Gallery | University of Maryland, College Park | Written by Ellen Zhang

We Live in The Sky is an exhibition that combines diverse voices on what home means to individuals. From Tori Ellison’s use of UMD writing students’ phrases about home to Mami Takahashi’s experience as a woman away from her Tokyo home, both artists explore belonging and identity. How Takahashi’s piece “Cage Mentality” expresses belonging, or the lack thereof, particularly struck me. 

Cage Mentality (2015) is a documentation of Takahashi’s one-hour-long performance, consisting of her building an enclosure of woven strings around herself. Starting with horizontal lines, Takahashi builds a layer of strings inches away from herself. With limited body movement, the artist closes the gaps of the horizontal strings by weaving, knotting, and crossing vertical lines. She does this until her entire body is hidden within the strings. When reflecting on the process, Takahashi states,  “In this uncomfortable situation where my body constantly touched lines, I had to force my arms to stretch more than necessary to continue to create a cage-like space”.

Mami Takahashi, Cage Mentality, 2015, documentation of performance, single-channel video, 03:00 min. 

In this way, the discomfort is self-inflicting, which makes the viewer question why Takahashi is doing this. Despite the uncomfortable process, she finds “the lure of isolation and its pain”. This represents how finding a “home” in a foreign environment is complex as navigating personal identity while facing social pressures can lead to isolation. While seclusion is painful, it can be enticing because it offers refuge from external forces such as adapting to a new language, traditions, and more. However, rejecting pressures to conform isn’t exactly liberating. The fear of losing one’s identity contrasts with the desire to fit in, resulting in internal turmoil. Social connection is a basic human need and, unfortunately, many immigrants feel pressured to sacrifice elements of their identity to satisfy it. In Cage Mentality, the social connection disappears as the barrier between the individual and the outside world becomes starker. 

So what does Cage Mentality say about home? We typically associate the term “home” with comfort. However, Takahashi challenges this idea by reflecting on the complexities of finding this source of solace. The quest for home includes mental turmoil and can lead to painful isolation. At the same time, solitude can provide a sense of security, allowing individuals to remove themselves from the pressures of a foreign environment. 

Takahashi’s work is included in We Live in The Sky at The Stamp Gallery of the University of Maryland, College Park, from October 16 to December 7, 2024.

For more information on Mami Takahashi, visit ​​https://mamitakahashi.art/.

For more information on We Live in The Sky and related events, visit stamp.umd.edu/centers/stamp_gallery.

Current Exhibition

Standing and Showering in Sound: What Center and Periphery Mean in Mami Takahashi’s Audio Journal

We Live in the Sky: Home, Displacement, Identity from October 16 to December 7, 2024, at The Stamp Gallery | University of Maryland, College Park | Written by Trinitee Tatum

Some cannot see the forest for the trees—drawn too close to the core, captivated by its light and promises, unable to look back. Others, existing farther away, wholly see it but are paralyzed by its force. The dominant Western, Anglo-Saxon American narrative weaves itself so insidiously into the cultural zeitgeist and media that it’s hard to identify and articulate, like a word lingering on the tip of the tongue or a dog chasing its tail. My initial introduction to this piece was an anecdote about feeling invisible and othered when prompted to retell my family’s “immigration” story in the third grade. The words evaded me as I attempted to articulate how exclusionary the assignment felt as I was asked to frame my ancestors’ enslavement in relation to immigration via Ellis Island. How, when it came to immigrating to the United States, Ellis Island was at the center, and everything else existed in the margins. Combating the tides of this pervasive dominant narrative is a daunting task, but artists like Mami Takahashi wield the power of language to center and platform the voices of immigrants. In her work Audio Journal (2024), Takahashi memorializes the unique and individualized experiences of immigration, the sensations of belonging and disbelonging, in a sonic assemblage.

Our struggles as immigrants, though individual and varying, share a winding path of fear. Some similar fears are shared regardless of the story: social fear related to the fragility of status, fear of differences in culture and accents, fear of missing out on “common knowledge,” and fear of a limited support system in the new country.

Mami Takahashi via website.
Mami Takahashi, Audio Journal, 2024.

Best described as a sound collage, Audio Journal is a harmonic layering of audio recordings from the Austin, Texas, immigrant community, a collaborative collection of 1-minute recordings at 11 AM from immigrant communities, and interviews from UMD’s international community. Activated by stepping into a marked circle on the gallery floor, a directional speaker bathes visitors from above in a blend of immigrant stories interwoven with fleeting sounds of daily life. The speaker’s design makes the sound feel as if it emanates from the listener’s own body, creating an intimate, almost internal experience that dissipates upon leaving the listening area, with sound softly spilling from the shower’s edges. Artist Takahashi’s use of a directional speaker here “investigates intimacy, though not necessarily closeness, in public spaces.” The speaker itself embodies a boundary– a threshold– separating the center from the periphery, powerfully demonstrating how voices at the center can overwhelm those on the margins.

Krystof Wodiczko, Monument for the Living, 2020.

Takahashi’s work of using language to hold space for immigrant voices parallels Polish artist Krzysztof Wodiczko’s ongoing projects of documenting the lives of immigrants, refugees, and other marginalized communities. Wodiczko’s Monument (2020) is the superimposition of the likenesses and spoken narratives of twelve resettled refugees onto the 1881 monument to Admiral David Glasgow Farragut in Madison Square Park. Reimagining the statue of this Union hero challenges the preconceived notions of which stories are preserved and honored for future generations– and which are left to fade into obscurity.

Audio Journal uses the act of standing to hold space for immigrant voices, urging visitors to make both a literal and metaphorical commitment to honor the narratives, experiences, and challenges of immigrant communities. Standing becomes an intentional, active exertion of the body—a stance that amplifies voices often overshadowed by dominant narratives. It acknowledges the physical and emotional labor involved in sharing and receiving these stories, inviting visitors to stand, listen, and shower in the sound.

Mami Takahashi’s work is included in We Live in the Sky: Home, Displacement, Identity at The Stamp Gallery of the University of Maryland, College Park, from October 16 to December 7, 2024. 

For more information on Mami Takahashi, visit https://mamitakahashi.art/. 

Current Exhibition

Hidden in Plain Sight: The Paradoxes of Self-Expression in Mami Takahashi’s Writing Myself

We Live in the Sky: Home, Displacement, Identity from October 16 to December 7, 2024 at The Stamp Gallery | University of Maryland, College Park | Written by Noa Nelson

Mami Takahashi’s video performance Writing Myself is a fascinating exploration of identity, language, and the paradoxes of self-expression. In this work, Takahashi uses writing as a tool not to reveal herself but to disappear, turning what could be a deeply personal form of communication into an act of obscuration. By transforming writing into a form of erasure, she invites us to contemplate the contradictions inherent in sharing our experiences while simultaneously shielding them from understanding.

The piece unfolds as Takahashi writes in Japanese –her mother tongue– on transparent film, using this familiar language to express anecdotes, quotes, memories, and thoughts. Born and raised in Tokyo, Takahashi often draws on themes of displacement and distance from home, and the use of Japanese in her work becomes a way of grounding herself within these feelings. The physicality of her process is deliberate and measured, it feels both intimate and meditative. As she writes, the text gradually builds up, creating a dense layer of characters that ultimately forms a barrier between her and the viewer. Her presence, once clearly visible, becomes obscured behind a wall of words, a literal screen of her thoughts that paradoxically makes them unreadable.

In Writing Myself, Takahashi wrestles with the tensions between expression and obscurity. On the one hand, writing is an act of communication—a way to connect, to leave behind a trace of one’s thoughts and experiences. But by layering the text until it becomes indecipherable, she complicates the act of sharing through writing. Her words, meant to be seen, are concealed, much like memories that fade with time or thoughts that lose clarity in translation. This paradox reflects the struggle between the desire to express oneself fully and the instinct to hide or protect certain truths.

  Mami Takahashi, “Writing Myself”, 2015, Single-channel Video, 03:00 min    

Takahashi’s work also comments on the way we face reality or escape from it. Writing, in many ways, serves as a means of confronting one’s experiences, offering a way to make sense of the world. Yet in Writing Myself, writing also becomes a means of retreat—a way for the artist to distance herself from the viewer. As she disappears behind her own words, she creates a space where the boundary between revelation and concealment becomes blurred. It’s as if she is using language to construct a mask, one that hides her while simultaneously revealing the contours of her thoughts.

For those who do not read Japanese, the text remains an opaque screen, inviting them to reflect on the limits of their understanding. Even for those who can read the language, the layering of characters turns the script into a visual rather than legible experience. The tension between the familiar and the inaccessible is present, echoing the complexities of cultural identity and the experiences of those who navigate multiple worlds.

Writing Myself serves as a powerful meditation on the contradictions of self-expression. Takahashi’s methodical writing process becomes an act of introspection, yet the final product is a wall that prevents true insight into her mind. It is a reminder that the act of sharing is never straightforward—every word we offer can also be a means of concealing, and every attempt to communicate can result in further mystery.

Through Writing Myself, Mami Takahashi challenges us to reconsider what it means to understand another person’s experiences. She invites us into her world, only to remind us that some aspects will always remain out of reach. Her piece, like the layers of text she builds, is a beautiful contradiction—an artwork that is as much about what it conceals as what it reveals. It serves as a reminder that art, much like language, is often most powerful when it embraces the spaces between expression and obscurity.

Mami Takahashi’s work is included in We Live in the Sky: Home, Displacement, Identity at The Stamp Gallery of the University of Maryland, College Park, from October 16 to December 7, 2024.

For more information on Mami Takahashi, visit https://mamitakahashi.art/.

For more information on We Live in the Sky: Home, Displacement, Identity and related events, visit https://stamp.umd.edu/centers/stamp_gallery.

Current Exhibition

Securi ex machina, or Safe from the machine

The Digital Landscape from August 26 to October 5, 2024, at The Stamp Gallery | University of Maryland, College Park | Written by Trinitee Tatum

For an instant, I stood in front of Chris Combs’ Pollination (2023). It simultaneously stole my face and voice, projecting a virtual me before the physical me. The real me. I should have felt violated, exposed, but I stayed. I let Pollination search and seize me. I spoke so it could hear me. I was compelled to let it document me. A moment of pirated digitalization transformed into a prolonged, authorized archival of the self for my own benefit. What led me, and many others, to indulge in and consent to Pollination’s surveillance? Are we hoping to see if technology perceives us the way we see ourselves? Or is it the hope that this piece documents our existence forever, so we may never be forgotten? Perhaps the answer lies somewhere in the unearthing of the algorithmic and systematic indulgence of surveillance for the sake of vanity and ego.

Chris Combs, Pollination, 2023. Aluminum, DIN terminal blocks, wire, screens, computers, 5×4.5×4’. Screenshot via artist’s website.

Pollination is an interactive flower-shaped piece that responds to faces and speech. It uses a camera to recognize faces, transforming them into rotating flower-like shapes, while a microphone listens to speech and displays its transcription on multiple small screens. However, Pollination does not fulfill the desire to be forever etched into the ether as nothing is uploaded from the piece. It uses “whisper.cpp” to transcribe audio entirely within the device and the facial recognition is powered by OpenCV. The closed circuited experience of Pollination means the user’s interaction is disposable, ephemeral. It’s a denial of permanent documentation.

Search results of security camera selfies on Pinterest.

On both systemic and individualistic levels, surveillance is often driven by concerns of fear, vulnerability, and a struggle for control. Surveillance pacifies through the external imposition of order, creating an illusion of security and stability through acts of monitoring, predicting, and understanding. However, this sense of authority is often superficial, and surveillance’s inherently parasitic nature demands data for eternity. Only major organizations have been able to harness the beast by overtly passing the labor of watching on to the users. Big tech companies create opportunities for self-surveillance and external monitoring via social media, but rather than creating a sense of control, this often exacerbates feelings of inadequacy and insecurities. Intentionally or unintentionally, users equate their self-worth to their social media metrics and are driven to curate a perfect public image to feel both internal and external validation. The more susceptible users watch themselves and others via digital networks, the more the images and algorithms reinforce their insecurities, where they compare and conflate themselves with the idealized, curated lives on their feeds. This creates a feedback loop where insecurity fuels surveillance, and surveillance fuels further insecurity.

Screenshot of ChatGPT when prompted to consider its own participation in self surveillance.

Ultimately, (self)-surveillance driven by insecurity is an endless and futile pursuit of reassurance as it only temporarily assuages fears– big, existential fears of the unknown, the fear of losing control, the fear of mortality, the fear of fate. The fear that we are here, and then we are gone. This reassurance, however, is fleeting, a temporary respite. The more one surveils, the more one realizes that complete control or total knowledge is impossible. Look Pollination in the eye, speak to its mic, but seek personal satisfaction beyond the screens. 

Chris Combs’ work is included in The Digital Landscape at The Stamp Gallery of the University of Maryland, College Park, from August 26 to October 5, 2024.