Artist Nancy Lovendahl drew inspiration from a Native American proverb and the 2020 census for a new creative project.
The large-scale sculptural installation is called “Listen or Your Tongue Will Make You Deaf,” featuring more than 200 small, ceramic pieces molded in the shape of an ear at her studio in Old Snowmass. They’re painted different skin-tone colors, to represent different demographics, and some pieces are clear, to represent people who didn’t participate in the census due to factors like fear about their immigration status.
Together, the pieces form a five-foot-by-eight-foot mural now on display at the Red Brick Center for the Arts. Pieces are arranged in clusters that group like with like, to represent the ways that systemic racism has separated groups of people.
Lovendahl said she wants people to think about “vast divisions” in the United States — and inspire viewers to think about how we can come together.
“My overall feeling is that we're not listening to each other because we might be judged as other,” Lovendahl said.
But it doesn’t have to be that way, Lovendahl suggested. She said the installation is part of a broader conversation about understanding and connection — and she hopes “that we will start listening to each other, and realize there's very little difference between us in the end.”
Lovendahl will share more about the project at a panel in the Red Brick Center for the Arts on Wednesday night. She’ll be joined by artists Nori Pao, Trace Nichols, Andrew Roberts-Gray and Tamara Susa, who have also contributed works to the art center’s current exhibition titled “Fortune Teller.” The conversation runs from 5:30 to 6:30 p.m.
This story has been updated to reflect the correct date for an artist panel at the Red Brick Center for the Arts. It is scheduled for Wednesday.
