Opening Reception: Saturday, March 21st, 7-10 pm
Monte Vista Projects is proud to present Shuhūd (Witnesses), a group installation curated by Seanna Latiff featuring over 35 artists who have created portraits of approximately 150 Palestinian journalists killed in Gaza. Shuhūd immerses us into a world of memory, inviting us to participate in collective mourning and remembrance. The exhibit will run from March 21 to April 19 with an opening reception on March 21 from 7 PM to 10 PM.
Shuhūd is a two-part project featuring an exhibition and fundraiser. This project transforms Monte Vista Projects into an immersive installation of portraits of journalists murdered by Israel. Participating artists include: Brett Park, Molly Segal, Kiara Aileen Machado, Chloe Hiu See Tsang, Michael Hambouz, and many more, who memorialize these journalists as both a political act and an attentive caretaking. Materialized into the physical realm, their faces will cover the walls of the gallery, turning the white cube into a confrontation with the scale of loss where one cannot look away. Through the creative act of portrait-making, artists are harnessing their personal arsenal of rebellion to create a counter-archive subverting dehumanizing power structures. Challenging systemic erasure and domination, Shuhūd investigates the cycles of injury and care, asking, “Why must the onus of repair fall onto those most affected?” Together, our offering is attention and remembrance: alchemized into action.
In addition to the memorial installation, Shuhūd invites us to turn our collective grief into tangible care through an online fundraiser (shuhudwitnesses.com) featuring donated works from artists such as Shizu Saldamondo, Molly Segal, Josiah O’Balles and more. 100% of the profits from the fundraiser sales will be donated to The Sameer Project’s “Rebuild Gaza” campaign, which undertakes the labor of infrastructural repair. By clearing streets of rubble and tending to destroyed neighborhoods, the Rebuild Gaza campaign aids Palestinian families in their journey to return home. The portraits of journalists found in the installation serve as a memorial and will not be for sale. To resist the passive compliance in white violence propagated by cultural institutions, Shuhūd reimagines the fundamental actions within the art world of commerce and viewership. The donation of time, resources, and labor affirms a collective responsibility to transform grief into sustained solidarity.
It is in the space where the gaze of the journalists meets ours that threads of collective consciousness are woven and preserved. We will honor the witnesses who held the world’s eyes in their hands. During their lifetimes, these individuals positioned themselves as spotlights, illuminating what would otherwise be hidden. Now we let the seers be seen as more than portals to the pain we are taught to look away from. We remember them as people with crow’s feet framing their eyes, and crooked smiles in family photos, just like any one of us.
Participating Artists:
Aaron Abunu, Gi Alcala, Michael Alvarez, Ambika, Roi Bagsic, Rie Bagsic, Savannah Bedjakian, Luna Beller-Tadiar, Rachid Bouhamidi, Ash Schimkus, Elly Dallas, Christian Espinoza, Sheldon Gantt, Michael Hambouz, Chloe Hiu See Tsang, Imarlie Isaacs, Marlon Ivory, Seanna Latiff, Nilay Lawson, Kiara Aileen Machado, Alison Ma, Isa Melendez, Grayden McIntyre, James Mize, Anika Nyman, Laurana Nyman, Josiah O’Balles, Brett Park, Aaron Parris, Roel Punzalan, Manuel Reyes, Justin Sado, Christine Sandoval, Molly Segal, Karim Shuquem, Michael Stocke, Josie Stocks, Camilla Taylor, Nia Williams, Hailey Sivadge, and Anonymous.
Artworks for sale www.shuhudwitnesses.com
The fundraiser features work for sale by:
Jay Allegretti, Josiah O’Balles, Roel Punzalan, iris yirei hu, Alfonso Juarez, Amanda Kirkhoff, Seanna Latiff, Corey La Rue, Irena Li, Nilay Lawson, Kiara Aileen Machado, Isa Melendez, James Mize, Lue Khoury, Anika Nyman, Laurana Nyman, Ray Packer, Shizu Saldamando, Matthew Saldivar, Molly Segal, Michael Shaw, Karim Shuquem, Skip Snow, Becca Vank, Liz Walsh, and HK Zamani.
Seanna Latiff (b. 2000, Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago) is a multidisciplinary artist and curator based in Los Angeles. Her work engages collective histories through a decolonial lens of care and reckoning.
Written by Lue “LIKETHEHIGHWAY” Khoury
