This year, MICA’s Exhibition Development Seminar (EDS) class, along with 11 artists, examines the continuously shifting definitions of shelter and privacy through the interdisciplinary group exhibition, Under Cover. From Friday, Jan. 27-Sunday, March 11, the approximately 50 works of sculpture, photography and video explore how private dwellings and public spaces have begun to merge and how, as a result, concepts of and expectations for shelter, protection and privacy have been irrevocably altered. The class looks at how densely populated cities, surveillance of the public and digital overexposure of personal information have contributed to dissolving the boundary between public and private space. As public domain continues to advance, perhaps the only shelter left is in the privacy of the mind. The exhibition, taking place in Fox Building’s Decker Gallery, 1303 W. Mount Royal Ave., will include a reception on Thursday, Feb. 2, 7-9 p.m.
“The class has invited a group of artists to think about privacy in real and virtual spaces, new models of urban or nomadic living, and the omnipresence of surveillance in contemporary life,” EDS faculty member Jeffry Cudlin said. “All of these issues are at the forefront of how we live now. They directly affect a group of students who are eyeing the current economic climate and trying to navigate a world in which all activities could be regarded as suspicious-and monitored accordingly.”
The annual EDS class enables students to examine the curatorial process through the research, planning and production of a major exhibition.
