NowWe’reAPRBLEM (NWA) is an exhibition of a community archive consisting of the faces, stories, and voices of womxn at the intersection of race, gender, class and sexuality. It explores ways that the womxn of the project and others at the intersection both can and do carve out space, preserve memory, and formulate identity and facilitates the continuation of those processes.

 

The gallery follows a garden aesthetic to encourage digging. We must look back to know where we’re headed, so we dig to find our roots. We must look back to know who we are and recover pieces of selves lost along the way, so we have to get our hands dirty. We must look across identity groups and around to find the kindred spirits—broken and in need of suturing—in order to form strong bonds that will, in turn, heal us all. So we must go to the source.

 

This is an exercise in world building by us, and for us.

 

The NowWe’reAPRBLEM gallery is also the home of We’reTheOnes:AnAnthology that features the work of a dozen contributors who met the challenge of getting in-body speaking from their standpoints. Because if not us, then who?​

 

We’re the ones.

 

​The gallery and its constituent elements—the archive as well as the anthology—pull together archived materials collected over the last few months. The collection asks how the acts of a few, the ones who are willing to peel back the layers, get in-body, and suture the ruptures of self and spirit, might inspire others to do the same and more.