Harlem exhibit fights social prejudice
Tuesday, April 3, 2012
By Nicollette Barsamian
Art for Change, a nonprofit providing a forum for creating art that inspires social justice, recently opened an exhibit in Spanish Harlem called “Know Gays Aloud.” According to operations chair William Collazo, it “gravitates around four issues of social justice: immigration, LGBT, women’s issues, and poverty/education—we see them as going hand in hand.”
Collazzo sees violence against LGBT people of color as “a perfectly timely issue,” despite significant progress in obtaining equal rights in the United States. Increased hostility in the Caribbean, the Middle East, and Africa has led to a rise in murders and teen suicides worldwide.
The dozen featured artists try to address those problems in a socially conscious and relevant way. “You have people who have fought for equality for their people, yet the LGBT community is exempted from this,” he said. “They are not people. Their community looks at them as an aberration.”
But the pieces in the exhibit speak for themselves.
Read the full article in the Columbia Spectator
Art for Change, a nonprofit providing a forum for creating art that inspires social justice, recently opened an exhibit in Spanish Harlem called “Know Gays Aloud.” According to operations chair William Collazo, it “gravitates around four issues of social justice: immigration, LGBT, women’s issues, and poverty/education—we see them as going hand in hand.”
Collazzo sees violence against LGBT people of color as “a perfectly timely issue,” despite significant progress in obtaining equal rights in the United States. Increased hostility in the Caribbean, the Middle East, and Africa has led to a rise in murders and teen suicides worldwide.
The dozen featured artists try to address those problems in a socially conscious and relevant way. “You have people who have fought for equality for their people, yet the LGBT community is exempted from this,” he said. “They are not people. Their community looks at them as an aberration.”
But the pieces in the exhibit speak for themselves.
Read the full article in the Columbia Spectator
