“For the past month, we’ve been asking members of the Carleton and greater Northfield community to make art for the annual 5th year winter show. Both of us are deeply excited the powerful tool that art can be for creating, maintaining and developing understanding between people or groups of people.
Our project was inspired by the Surrealist game Exquisite Corpse, which allows multiple people to work on an image without knowing what the other participants are making, only to reveal a strange but coherent collaborative piece. We borrowed this idea of individual images that come together to create a whole and applied it to the broad theme of “family.”
We believe these “Exquisite” family members are successful if they are both silly and meaningful. Particularly in light of the recent elections and continuing globalization, Americans have been challenged daily to redefine and question difficult issues of identity and family. Our hope is that the juxtaposition of many different visions of family members invites a creative, inclusive and optimistic exploration of how we define family, both individually and as a culture.
We designed the exhibit to be interacted with constantly. Everybody is encouraged to continue to switch up and move the pieces to new locations to create new Exquisite combinations.”
— From Dylan and Rafa