Lisa Rosowsky: Othering

Lisa Rosowsky’s works use a range of media—found objects, photographs, text, and installation—to highlight how we “other” while urging us to understand history and our place within it.  In Rosowsky’s words, “Othering negates individuals’ humanity. It makes us believe that certain others are less intrinsically worthy of dignity and respect. It leads us to form prejudices, to dehumanize entire groups of people based on ‘race,’ religion, ethnicity, gender and sexual identity, and political beliefs. Worse, individual prejudices can begin to drive public policy, government institutions, laws, and the politically-sanctioned denial of human rights. Othering is at the root of individual acts of hate, as well as wars and genocide.”

Rosowsky’s work is both historical and contemporary, investigating the origins of why we “other,” how hate is manifested, and how we process and memorialize this visually.  This exhibition includes works that address distinct events in history, but the prejudices and othering that run through each piece transcends time and place and the pieces themselves are an urgent call to action.