Counterspaces
May 12, 2021 – May 12, 2022
Rochester Art Center, Rochester, MN
Project by: Angie Mejia, Yuko Taniguchi and Lucia Sem
Curation: Zoe Cinel
As a term "counterspaces" have been conceptualized by Yosso and other critical race theorists as safe spaces of resistance where racially marginalized individuals can find support and engage in ways to transform their current lived reality. Yosso et al (2010) have found that BIPOC students might “seek out and establish socio academic counterspaces that position their cultural knowledge as valuable strengths” (2010, p. 677) as a response to experiencing interpersonal, institutional, and structural forms of oppression, including gendered racism in institutions of higher learning.
The Counterspaces project is a community-art collaborative model envisioned by two faculty members at the University of Minnesota Rochester (UMR) – Angie Mejia and Yuko Taniguchi and UMR alumna Lucia Sem. The project was an intentional response to the lack of transformative spaces and inadequate resources for students identifying as Black, Indigenous, or other People of Color (BIPOC). Counterspace allowed BIPOC undergraduates in the health sciences to use art to communicate anxieties about their ongoing experiences as students and their future as healthcare providers and scientists.
The exhibition of the works created through these workshops was curated by Zoe Cinel for the Rochester Art Center. The were three rotations of artworks that included artworks created by the many participants to the workshops. The exhibition was open from April 2021 to July 2022.
The space was set up to inspire active community engagement with the participants’ works. First, the area includes spaces for patrons to sit down and contemplate the pieces. Second, two art creation spaces were set up for museum patrons to participate and respond to the exhibit. The first station was stocked with origami paper and instructions on creating various shapes to add to a collective wall display. A second station included various pens, markers, paints, and card stock paper for the community to leave messages and poems responding to the artists’ work.
First artworks rotation, spring 2021
Artwork by Kristen Newton
Artwork by Yuko Taniguchi
Participatory wall spring 2021
Participatory wall spring 2022
Participatory wall
Participatory wall
Participatory wall
Images from one of the tours
Counterspaces co-founder Angie Mejia leads a tour
Images from one of the tours lead by the artists
Images from one of the tours
Images from one of the tours
Artist Melody S. Yan leads a tour
Artwork by Melody S. Yan
Artwork by Maimuna Aden
Artist Maimuna Aden leading a tour
Images from one of the tours
Artist Kylie Pha leading a tour
Artwork by Kylie Pha
Artist Nina Keyza leading a tour
Artwork by Nina Keyza
Artist Alexis Pena-Ciegos leads a tour
Artwork by Alexis Pena-Ciegos
Conunterspaces co-founder Yuko Taniguchi talks about one of the artwork
Artwork by Angie Mejia
Artwork by Kao Moua
Artwork by Michelle T. Vue
Documentation by Kali Morrison and Amy Garretson
Counterspaces 2.0
August - October, 2023
The Robert J. Jones Urban Research and Outreach-Engagement Center (UROC), Minneapolis, MN
Curated by Zoe Cinel & Yuko Taniguchi Partnership UMR, UROC
Counterspaces began at the University of Minnesota Rochester (UMR) as a collective healing project for community members who have been impacted by the existing and increasing acts of racialized violence against Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders and Black, Indigenous, and People of Color. Curated by Rochester Art Center Curator Zoe Cinel and UMR Assistant Professor Yuko Taniguchi, the exhibit is dedicated for listening to the stories, thoughts, and feelings of marginalized community members. Counterspaces is intended to be safe social space which offers support and enhance feelings of belonging in marginalized individuals existing in spaces that are not made with them in mind. Write exhibit organizers: “A counterspace is much more than just one of safety. It is a place of possibility for empowerment and transformation. And it is more than just a space of survival; as it is a space where critiques of and understandings on how oppression operates at the local level are collectively understood and acted upon at the larger, structural one.”