By Khalida Sarwari
To get people to ponder notions such as kindness and hope, Diana Argabrite places ceramic fortune cookies openly around the De Anza College campus to lure viewers into her Euphrat Museum of Art, where the curator seals the deal by handing them freshly popped popcorn at the entrance to snack on while reflecting on the big questions. It’s a little unconventional, but it works.
Inside the breezy gallery, visitors are invited to cast their gaze upon a variety of art forms, from drawings, large-format photographs and portraits to mixed-media sculptures and interactive installations, many of them created by Bay Area-based artists, that explore positive counter-narratives as a response to injustice or oppression.
The exhibit, titled “Kindness as Resistance,” opened Oct. 30 and will be up through Dec. 8 for free viewing to the public. The idea for the exhibit has roots in the previous exhibit, “Justice for All?” as well as in a documentary Argabrite saw on the Standing Rock protests against the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline.
“What impressed me and moved me so deeply,” said Argabrite, “was watching a clip of the protesters—Native people—resisting what was happening literally with kindness as water cannons were being shot at them. They were standing their ground with love in their heart and responding with kindness to the violence they were experiencing in the moment,” she said.
Continued Argabrite, “By doing that, it was like they were coming straight to the heart and preserving their own dignity and souls. I think there’s power in responding to violence with kindness, with compassion, with empathy instead of that phrase ‘fighting fire with fire.’ ”
Through this process, Argabrite said she realized the importance of developing concrete images for positive but intangible concepts. And so she embarked on a curation process, eventually enlisting the help of 14 various artists, among them Elsa Aguirre, Rosanna Alvarez, Tessie Barrera-Scharaga, Lenore Chinn, Kate DeCiccio, Lewis deSoto, Shepard Fairey, Yolanda Guerra, Omar Hernández, Elias Kamal, Pantea Karimi, Ruth Morgan, Esther Traugot and Adon Valenziano.
Guerra, a full-time artist and teacher at San Jose High School, has two pieces in the show. Titled “Maiz of Life,” the first piece is a mixed-media wall-sized tapestry bursting with red, green and yellow and features a corn as a womb with one fetus at the core and another at the trunk. A takeoff on the tree of life, the piece pays homage to the abundance and sustenance of the plant.
“I think we forget that corn is an important product in our lives, and so my piece is basically talking about that in a subtle way,” Guerra said. “I’m not showing the negative; I’m showing the positive of it.”
“Maiz” is complemented by “The Guardians,” a much smaller tapestry depicting hummingbirds encircling a heart that Guerra created a few years ago using cloth, thread and acrylic paint. She said both works were produced either during or immediately after participating in a National Endowment for the Humanities program in Oaxaca, Mexico.
”I came back from that trip really understanding the importance of corn on our lives and within our cultures, as well as in consideration to GMOs and Monsanto and the destroying of these other seeds by genetically modified chemicals,” she said.
Guerra said she agreed to have her work included in the exhibit because the message behind the show resonated with her.
“This show really came at a time when I think we all have to make a decision for our lives to go in the direction of hope and building together for a better life or do we go backwards and be stuck?”
She continued, “It’s easy to go into a negative space (and feel as though) everything around you is falling apart, but for me… I need to think about what’s going to change my life for the better. I’m choosing a better life and of hope rather than being stuck and not knowing what to do.”
Pantea Karimi, a San Jose-based artist who teaches at Gavilan College and Cabrillo College, has several pieces in the exhibit, many of which were inspired by her childhood in Shiraz, Iran. Her works collectively attempt to engage four of the five senses: touch, sight, hearing and smell.
Her most visible piece is called “Folding Gardens,” an installation of digital prints on silk organza, rods and threads that hang from the ceiling. The work is based on “The Herbal of al‑Ghafiqi,” a manuscript written by 12th century Andalusian physician and scholar Abu Ja’far al-Ghafiqi.
“The idea is that someone can take these fabric strips in a folded manner and open them on demand,” Karimi said. “To me, it’s very poetic. It’s a metaphor for carrying the healing notion of nature. That’s why they’re printed on fabric so they can be folded.”
In this space, Karimi has the sound of a water fountain emanating from speakers. Alongside “Folding Gardens” is another piece that’s titled “Medicinal Herbal Volvelle,” an interactive wheel installation that reveals the healing properties of eight plants. And right next to that is a shelf that contains plant extracts—another interactive piece that invites visitors to open the bottles and take a whiff, a Shiraz-inspired piece of art, Karimi said.
“When I was a kid in Shiraz, I used to go with my grandmother to the bazaars,” she said. “She was a believer in herbal medicines to cure minor discomfort, and she taught me a lot about these plants. I remember there were rows of these amazing bottles and they contained these plant extracts, so I wanted to kind of create that experience for people where they can smell those plants and also learn about their healing properties.”
Karimi developed these works this year as part of a six-month fellowship residency she completed at the Kala Art Institute in Berkeley. Her aim, she said, was to encourage people to engage with these concepts through the senses rather than just read about them online or in a book.
“My main idea is basically that I would like to encourage people to get connected to the natural world,” she said. “The importance of connectivity with the natural world is the main idea behind this botanical work and also to highlight the ancient practices. I feel like in contemporary times, we are not connected to the healing aspect of nature. We are connected to the beauty of it and preserving it, but how about the healing aspect of it? So I wanted to highlight that through my work.”
“Kindness as Resistance” is the Euphrat Museum’s fall exhibit and is presented as a special project for the 50th anniversary of De Anza College with Teatro Visión and Intercultural Studies students and faculty. As part of the show, the museum will host a performance directed by Rodrigo Garcia and including a vegetarian tamale lunch Nov. 29, 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. in the Visual and Performing Arts Theater. Other related events include a First Thursday open mic night on Dec. 7, 5 to 7:30 p.m.
The Euphrat Museum of Art is open Monday through Thursday, 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. and on Dec. 2 from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. on the De Anza College campus, 21250 Stevens Creek Blvd., Cupertino.
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