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Free Your Mind @Touchstone
May 17 – September 20, 2024
Free Your Mind is a public textile art endeavor led by artist Theda Sandiford, with the objective of gathering, showcasing, embedding, and liberating personal narratives surrounding microaggressions through a multi-sensory installation.
Microaggressions, those nuanced and sometimes unintentional daily interactions, convey hostile, derogatory, or negative messages or assumptions towards historically marginalized groups. The cumulative impact of these routine encounters manifests in tangible consequences—stress, anger, frustration, self-doubt, and ultimately, a sense of powerlessness and invisibility.
This project boldly unveils these interactions to offer a cathartic release. Participants are encouraged to share their experiences of microaggressions by inscribing them onto a ribbon, which is then tied to a net, symbolizing the liberation of these stories from their personal narratives. Each ribbon becomes a tangible “story ribbon.”
This project is supported by Arts, Equity, & Education Fund
ABOUT THEDA SANDIFORD
Theda Sandiford, is a self-taught mixed media artist based in Jersey City, NJ. Though art is engrained in her psyche, Theda’s first creative endeavors were in the music business as a sales & digital marketing executive. After years of ground breaking digital work for musicians, she began applying digital and analog art processes to develop her own artistic self-expression as a means of art therapy.
Join us on Zoom or in-person for two engaging artist talks on May 22 and September 24. Share your “story ribbon” while visiting Touchstone’s campus from May to September, 2024.