Onsite: March 9-March 29, 2021
Online: March 9-November 30, 2021
On Instagram @reflectingselfcare

Within the past year, the global health crisis has revealed how racial, gender, and economic disparities are deeply embedded in the infrastructure of this country. Social unrest, in response to political upheaval and racial injustices, has rebuked these oppressive forces and ignited change to ensure survival for those at the margins. While survival defines existence as living in spite of difficulties, preservation is ensured through an active and continuous care of oneself. 

The exhibition “Reflecting Self-Care,” curated by Art History 102 students and Professor Susette Min, evaluates on one level the institutional mandate of higher education, and on another level, visualizes a curriculum where self-preservation and collective care are manifested through sustainable environments of learning and healing. In conversation with Andrea Bowers’s Education Should Be Free, the exhibition contemplates education that is free from a mentally and physically debilitating curriculum. By engaging in radical self-care, the curators of AHI 102 envision alternative modes of higher education that begin with caring for oneself. Reflecting Self-Care gathers artworks by artists–Sheridan Chavira, Fiona Heenan, Paola Lagunas, Simone Leigh, Xelestiál Moreno-Luz, Mimi McMillan, Benjamin Qin–and the UCD community to model a space of healing and revitalization for the mind and body by encouraging responsibility for communal wellness.

Co-curated by Dorian Aguilar, Larisa Peñaloza Almazán, Marah Carney, Andrea Cota, Lauryn Crum, Qinmi Guo, Rebecca Myers, Daisy Scott, Jane Seslar, Sarita Vindas, and Shaina Whaley, “Reflecting Self-Care” explores radical self-care and methods of self-preservation as an essential part of our collective politics and well-being.  

Please join Professor Min and the students of AHI 102 on Tuesday, March 9 between 4-5 pm at the Manetti Shrem Museum on the plaza/patio for a curator-led tour and at 7-8 pm online for a curator-led tour of the web component of the exhibition. Please note: The Manetti Shrem Museum remains closed at this time.

The onsite component of the exhibition will run between March 9-March 29; and the online component runs through November 30, 2021.

Read more about the exhibition on the Manetti Shrem site here.

Join the Opening via zoom March 9 at 7 pm (PST).