Only If We Wish To brings together 15 artists of various backgrounds united by works that decontextualize and undress the layered complexities that center around forms, systems, bodies, freedom, and communal empathy. As we begin to emerge from a collective experience many of us are transformed. We have become more open and vulnerable as we undergo a reawakening and a healing metamorphosis.

Curated by Shane Allen, Cecilia André, Hadass Backman, Shwarga Bhattacharjee, Gosha Karpowicz, A. Morgan McKendry, and Alison Pirie. All were selected as participants in The New York Artists Equity Association’s Spring Curatorial Residency. This residency was established to meet the NYAEA’s core value of “artists helping artists” empowering those with a passion for curation with guidance, support, and instruction through the complexities of initiating an exhibition.

Only If We Wish To is an entryway into a realm of reflection and insight, meditating upon our human need for freedom: freedom to exist in this multi-cultural complicated world, to feel and share our individual autonomous experiences, examining how we connect to each other.