Not Judging People Before Getting to Know Them

Who we think we are is not easily understood by most members of society, but they can have a preconceived idea of who they think we are. “Don't judge a book by its cover” is a phrase commonly preached by parents and teachers during our development. Unfortunately though, it didn’t seem to really stick to most of us. The natural tendency to already figure out who someone is before they even speak is really what needs to change. Society as a whole needs to see that people come from different countries, backgrounds, and levels of class. These artists in the exhibition that I am curating step away from their homes and put their nationalities into a different context. This allows them to see more clearly who they are and to explore it. Granted no one can have themselves all figured out, but with their art practice they are getting close to figuring it out. We are complicated human beings with deep and expansive histories and in this day in age we are all very different from each other. No one can look at another person anymore and be even close to having it all figured out.
Although the great thing about identity is that it is a fixed point; something that everyone has and can reflect upon. Granted, who we think we are can be adjusted a bit as we age, but primarily we are always the same person on the inside throughout our lives. There are many different ways to think about identity; by class, race, gender, politics, sports, by association, or as something more obscure and not very categorized. Young adults have a large number of ways to think about identity and it is usually based on style and taste in music. These are classifications that are mostly based on the surface of who a person really is. Humans by nature are very complex so ...

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...ded aspect of the Singh Twins’ work, on the description card next to their work, they will not be listed separately as the artist of the work. This one small detail can directly cause the viewer to further question identity in a completely different way.
When leaving the gallery after viewing, Hello My Name Is, my hope is that the viewer will approach meeting new people in a new way. With any luck they will be more open and aware of the fact that whatever new person they meet next will have a very deep and complex history that makes up their identity. In addition to that, they will hopefully begin to question their own identity further and possibly start to try and come up with an answer. It can take years to truly figure out our full identities, but those who have a good idea will also be more open to the deeper identity of other people present in their lives.