SPARK IV: A New World?
April 29 - June 26, 2021
ABOUT THE EXHIBITION
SPARK IV: A New World? was on view at Maryland Art Place April 29 through June 26, 2021, and the exhibition extended online with a digital presentation of additional works.
Collectively, the work presented in SPARK IV: A New World? reflected the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic as well as longer-term concerns about climate change and the fight for equality and justice.
“Inside the word ‘emergency’ is ‘emerge’; from an emergency new things come forth. The old certainties are crumbling fast, but danger and possibility are sisters.”
As daily life shut down to address the spread of the virus, isolating us and fundamentally altering the sense of time itself; we yearned for distant places with travel restricted and spent days on end in our homes; it was a polarizing and traumatizing year not just due to the pandemic but due to the 2020 election cycle and the killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Rayshard Brooks, among others in 2020, by police.
As anxiety built, we contemplated what our lives would be like, tomorrow and beyond. Through the work presented, these artists suggest ways to answer our own questions, to look to the past for inspiration and insight, to see that climate change will continue to impact us unless we act, and to fight to end racist and unequal systems in our society, both overt and hidden, that impact trans lives, Black lives, women’s lives.
The future is not written and through the work of these artists we are reminded that it needs our collective hope and action – with hope we can cope, adapt, and persevere through whatever lies ahead.
The exhibition at Maryland Art Place was organized around the themes Altered Time, Imagined Places, Future Focus, Climate Horizon, and Equitable Future though many of the works straddled more than one of these themes.
– Catherine Borg, SPARK Curator
Click on artists’ names in the captions below to learn more about each work.
Online Student Gallery
The exhibition continues: View additional artworks from Towson University and UMBC student artists
I Want to Be
A series of performances by Anna Kroll and Chloe Engel
SPARK IV Video Program
View the program notes
