“What we allow the mark of our suffering to become is in our own hands.”
- bell hooks, All about Love:New Vision

Whenever I am invited to curate an exhibition, give a talk, or exhibit my work, feelings of excitement and honor soon give way to anxiety and self-deprecation. It’s that voice—you know the one—that says, “You’re not good enough,” “You’re not smart enough,” “There are far more capable people.” Dr. Brené Brown, a researcher out of the University of Houston famed for her work in the study of vulnerability, states, “when you feel exposed…stay uncomfortable, stay in the cringing moment, lean [in],” because, “vulnerability is the birthplace of innovation, creativity, and change.”   

In preparing for this exhibition I realized something I’ve known for a long time—artists are no stranger to the “cringing moment.” Each artist featured in Expect Some Discomfort leans into vulnerability as a pathway to change and healing. They engage with their own vulnerability and help others to find theirs, in order to create these pathways. Instead of just exhibiting the end product of this journey, their work often reveals the trials, difficulties, and challenges these pathways may lead to or have originated from. 

Being a visual person I always think in pictures, and when thinking about the pathway to healing within the context of creation, that scene from the film Fantasia comes to mind—the segment where Igor Stravinsky’s composition Rite of Spring plays over explosive, earth-shattering, complex, raw, and sometimes frightening animated images of the creation of our world. As you engage with the art in the exhibition, you’ll encounter works that offer the very sentiment (visually, emotionally, or conceptually) that Stravinsky’s piece elicited. 

These artists utilize video, sculpture, collage, text, photography, social practice, and even their own bodies. Through these mediums, they reconstruct memory, search for, and battle against, acceptance, and share moments of intimacy against the backdrop of challenging current events. As a Queer Latinx artist, I find solace in the shared experiences I have with these narratives but am also aware of how different these experiences are. Overall, the artists and the work in this exhibition offer much more than a pathway, but rather a continuum towards potential—potential to learn, potential to change, potential to heal, and potential to act. 

- David Rios Ferreira 2020

Graphic Design - Vanezza Cruz

Web Design - Patrick Perry