Iowa City “Do You Belong Here?” exhibit asks questions about acceptance, belonging

Do you belong here?

That phrase is the name of a new exhibit on display at Public Space One in Iowa City through Jan. 25. The show features six artists, all from outside Iowa City - an unusual show for the downtown gallery, which typically features local artists.

The exhibit is multidisciplinary with photographs, sculpture installations and drawings.

'The artists we put together were all sort of dealing with these notions of place and belonging,” said one of the show's organizers, Lauren Frances Evans. 'We're hoping that the work in the show will engage the audience and the public in this question of belonging.”

She said that question of belonging can cause a range of reactions.

'This question can be controversial and contradictory, and we're hoping it doesn't read as, ‘You don't belong here.' It's more, ‘Do you feel you belong here?', and if not, what are the structures that contribute to that?” Evans said. 'We're not offering any answers or solutions, more just opening up the question and seeing how people respond and interpret it.”

One of the artists in the show, Minneapolis-based artist Julia Caston decided to open up the question directly on Saturday during a related performance piece.

She sat on the Iowa City Pedestrian Mall with a marquee sign emblazoned with 'Do you belong here?” for several hours Saturday afternoon. With two chairs, she hoped people would sit and engage in dialogue with her about what their reactions to the sign and how they feel about belonging, acceptance and Iowa City. About 12 strangers did so, she said. A couple of people reacted negatively, she said, but others engaged in in-depth conversations.

'It's a generic question that people can project onto,” she said. 'It's really open to interpretation.”

She said some mentioned the recent controversy surrounding a Ku Klux Klan effigy that was briefly displayed Dec. 1 on the Pentacrest.

'One man talked with me about how the university treats diversity on campus, about what he saw,” she said. 'I'm not from Iowa City, so I was a fresh set of ears and eyes to hear about how people feel about it.”

Another person turned the question around and asked Caston if she belonged here.

'He was the first person to ask that question of me,” she said. 'It allowed me to talk more generally about the question of belonging somewhere than about the details of belonging in Iowa City.”

If you go

l What: 'Do You Belong Here” exhibit

l Where: Public Space One,

120 N. Dubuque St.

l When: Gallery hours, Sundays

1 p.m. to 3 p.m. or by appointment at (319) 331-8893 or john@publicspaceone.com.

l Cost: Free