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October 5, 2018, Speaking Volumes: Transforming Hate, an art exhibition at the Holter Museum of Art, opened for its 10 year anniversary showing. The exhibit displays diverse work of 46 artists who transformed thousands of anti-Semitic and racist books into uplifting artwork. The exhibition is sponsored by the Montana Human Rights Network (MHRN).
In 2003, MHRN came into possession of over 4,000 anti-Semitic and racist books that had been used to fund a Montana hate group. Katie Knight, a head curator of the art installation,explained that “In 2004, the Montana Human Rights Network sent out 500 books all over the country to research organizations, libraries, and groups that tracked the activities of White supremacists. They still had left 360 books, so they tried to figure out what to do with all these books. A high school student, the son of one the directors, had an idea of turning them into art, and that’s where this whole show began.”
Some of the artists are well known, while other artists are not as well known. Yet they all contributed art that was either made from the pages of the books, or that fight social injustices condoned by the books.
Some artists featured in this exhibit are Cathy Weber, Corwrin Clairmont, Jane Waggoner Deschner, Jack Daws,Jaune Quick-to-See Smith and Neal Ambrose-Smith. Each one of their pieces are diverse and bear witness to the consequences of bigotry. They tell personal stories of what they have experienced, juxtapose to the books, collaborate with other people, and/or layer beauty over horror.
Other artists are also allowed to contribute art to the exhibition as long as they are entering books that they made filled with content that seeks justice, love, and healing. The only things that limit entries are the size of the work and that the work does not support white supremacists.
Katie Knight expressed calmly “I hope that it is an opportunity for people to have a dialogue about our history and our future and who we are and what kind of people we want to be. The whole question of how we open our hearts to each other. I also really hope this exhibition helps people make a choice in favor of defending human rights and not just human rights the rights of the living planet.”
There will also be a series of events that go along with the exhibition. The link to find out the dates of the events is: https://mhrn.org/events/ .
The event will for sure change many people’s minds and hearts, and help people to be able to make a choice to be in favor of defending not just human rights but of the rights of the living planet we call home.
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