Observed: Hypervisibility and Reclamation

Observed: Hypervisibility and Reclamation explores the contradictions we face when surveillance is conflated with safety; when law enforcement agencies, governments, businesses, and institutions leverage digital and biometric technologies to track us, as well as our resistance and community responses. Using examples from Detroit, we dive deeper into the web of privatized surveillance and militarized security forces who use biometric technologies proven to cause harm, in particular the disenfranchisement of people of color. We also recognize Detroit as a birthplace of many revolutionary movements by shining a light on resistance organizing and community responses that ensure collective and communal safety. This exhibition features the work of Tawana Petty, Halima Afi Cassells, Kate Levy, Shanna Merola, en sawyer, and poets from around the world; artists whose work addresses these topics through spoken word, collage, projection, installation, and design.