The University of Utah’s Marriott Library is featuring a traveling social justice display that highlights an exhibit labeling President Donald Trump a “compulsive liar” and “likely tax dodger.”
The library joins the College Book Art Association (CBAA) in presenting the exhibition until the end of the semester, reports Campus Reform:
Titled “Rising Together: An Exhibition of Zines, Artists’ Books and Prints with a Social Conscience,” the display will be shown at various schools until 2021, including the University of Iowa, the ArtCenter College in California, and the University of Puget Sound in Washington.
CBAA’s overview of the juried exhibition describes the work included in the show as demonstrating “how artist books give activism a visual voice, and can serve as powerful agents in effecting positive social change on issues encompassing social justice, power, politics, the environment and more.”
“At each location, the exhibit will be accompanied by participatory programs and public education initiatives,” CBAA adds.
Campus Reform reports:
The artwork included books, prints, and zines with a social justice focus. Some of these included displays of President Donald Trump with the labels “compulsive liar” and “likely tax dodger” and a University of Utah Students for a Democratic Society booklet entitled “Fighting for Progress in the Trump Era.”
According to the report, the exhibition also features displays of memorabilia from the Women’s March, including a “pussyhat” poster, and the March for Our Lives anti-gun protest.
A poster featuring a quote from former President Barack Obama (“The single most powerful word in our democracy is the word ‘We.’ ‘We the People,’ ‘We Shall Overcome,’ and ‘Yes, We Can.’”) is also among the exhibits.
Additionally, an art book display titled “The Party’s Over” by NOVA Southeastern University performing and visual arts Professor Tennille Davis Shuster is reportedly a representation of Shuster’s reaction to the 2016 election and Trump’s “thoughtless and divisive public statements.”
Shuster will donate book sales generated from the exhibit to groups such as Planned Parenthood, Everytown for Gun Safety Action Fund, and the Center for Reproductive Rights.
“It’s funny it’s called the ‘Rising Together’ exhibition when it alienates an entire group of students based off who they voted for,” University of Utah student James Nielsen told Campus Reform.
“This exhibition is clearly designed to wrongfully paint all conservatives, Trump supporters, and law enforcement as threats to women and minorities,” he added. “This only stokes division and does not cultivate legitimate and much-needed debate over the issues facing our nation.”
The exhibition was juried by Amos Paul Kennedy, Jr., Jessica Spring, and Chandler O’Leary.
Kennedy’s bio describes him as “a descendant of the enslaved peoples of theseunitedstatesofamerica.”
“At 40 years of age, Kennedy embraced his humanity and abandoned the commercial dream that defines this civilization,” the description continues. “Unsatisfied with the illusion of a comfortable, middle-class life, Amos traded in his computer for a printing press and his white collar for overalls.”
According to their bios, Spring and O’Leary collaborated in 2008 on Dead Feminists, described as “a letterpressed series of broadsides featuring quotes by historical feminists, tied in with current political and social issues.”