The Abrons Arts Center is proud to present me, we, a multi-platform collaboration partnering with the Dia Art Foundation’s education program, Abrons Arts Center StudioLab program, and 11th-grade Studio Art majors at Lower Manhattan Arts Academy (LoMA). Grounded by a continuously evolving installation on view at the Abrons Arts Center from February 17-March 17, 2012, me, we is an exploration and articulation of collective authorship that blurs the lines between studio space, exhibition, and public forum.

The gallery will act as a response laboratory between Dia Art Foundation’s Education Associate and poet Christine Hou, Dia Teaching Artist Lisa Iglesias, and the LoMA students. Audience members will witness a visual- and text-based exchange that will include large format graphite drawings, text as image, signage, and miniature casted monuments. Supporting programming will include two public events in the exhibition space and 16 workshop sessions for LoMA students in the Abrons Arts Center StudioLab classroom.

Beginning with the direct quote from Muhammad Ali in 1967, and arguably the shortest poem in the English language, me, we considers the notion of a poetic politics, and how the voice of the individual is shaped within a collective experience. Ideas central to this program will be: text as image (and vice versa), collaboration as a form of growth, and art as a lateral community-building practice. Together, the students will consider thinkers and gestures, such as Joseph Beuys, Sol Lewitt, Gertrude Stein, Kara Walker, the Occupy Wall Street movement, the performance art of William Pope.L and writing in relationship to the body. Throughout the duration of the project, LoMA students will integrate critical thinking within an arts practice as well as develop public programs and exhibit works-in-process to their peers and the Lower East Side community.

Additional participants included in this specialized partnership are me, we co-creator, Studio and Gallery Programming Manager at the Abrons Arts Center, and LoMA StudioLab Cultural Partner-in-Residence Carolyn Sickles; Queens Borough Poet Laureate Paolo Javier; and The Friendly Falcons, a collaborative arts duo featuring Jeffrey Kurosaki and Tara Pelletier.

Public programming in conjunction with me, we:

Thursday, March 8, 2012 | 6-8 pm Upper Main Gallery Performance by The Friendly Falcons, oh, river

Thursday, March 15, 2012 | 6-8 pm Upper Main Gallery Open Mic Night Audience members are invited bring personal or found text for participatory reading.