Artists express alarm about our nation’s new directions in the San Francisco Arts Education Project’s latest interactive visual arts exhibition Rise Up! Art As Action.

Each of the 21 participating artists has a singular voice, a point of view and a medium with which to express themselves as they respond to the state of our nation. Each artist also recognizes that being part of this exhibition for this particular organization means they are speaking directly to school-age children, ages 5 to 17, through their work and so have created prompts and ideas for involving the SFArtsED student audience to respond to the work. While all children may not understand political discourse, they have likely all felt what it is like to be bullied (or to bully), to feel unheard or to walk past a row of tents on the street offering scant shelter to the homeless. Their responses then become a cumulative component in the exhibition.

The distinguished artists participating in Rise Up! ask for written or artistic or other creative responses – using words as triggers to evoke personal reactions or memories, for example – to forge a connection between a work of art and the viewer’s own thoughts and emotions. In this way, the visitors will be invited to be part of the conversation and to take action.

“We are delighted to welcome such a distinguished group of artists to our gallery’s exhibition Rise Up! Art As Action,” says SFArtsED Artistic Director Emily Keeler. “This will be an opportunity for artists as a group to raise their concerns about the policies that threaten our country’s values and progress on the national and world stage in regards to human rights, the environment and peace. Through their work they will express themselves in the powerful and eloquent ways that only artists can. In addition they will also offer prompts to our many young visitors that will encourage the young viewers to use the arts for their own expressions.”

PARTICIPATING ARTISTS
Seyed Alavi 
Chester Arnold
Noa Batle
Dawoud Bey
Libby Black
Tom Comitta
Aiko Cuneo
Linda Gass
Nancy Klein Green
Taraneh Hemami
Prajakti Jayavant
Lynn Marie Kirby
William Lukas
Hung Liu
Kara Maria
Erik Parra
Joel Daniel Phillips
Michele Pred
Lily Simonson
Lewis Watts
Wanxin Zhang