Featuring work by Siemon Allen, April Banks, Mary Walling Blackburn, BLW, Melissa Day, the Journal of Aesthetics and Protest, Michael Light, Nathan Lynch, Alison Pebworth, the Renaming Bush Street Project, Jonathan Santos, Mark Tribe, and the Visible Collective.

Curated by Valerie Imus, a Southern Exposure Curatorial Committee Member

Being an American has rarely been so depressing. Current US policy inspires a maelstrom of international bile. Presidential candidates deliver a rhetoric of hope and change which experience suggests is an attempt to co-opt the desire for radical transformation for an agenda that will do little to upset the demands of capital. In this milieu, artwork that contemplates what it means to live in this country at this moment must confront the historical processes that have brought us to this impasse. The artists in Hopeless and Otherwise address our contemporary conception of American identities within the context of our historic narratives and myths. They negotiate the current pervasive atmosphere of doom and powerlessness by venting their own rage or simply grappling with the feeling of being outsiders in this bizarre place we call home. Their explorations acknowledge the challenges and direness of our current situation, while persistently reframing and engaging alternative perspectives on being American.