Occupy Colby is part of the Brooklyn Rail’s ongoing exhibition Artists Need to Create on the Same Scale That Society Has the Capacity to Destroy, featuring artists engaging with political and social concerns. This second iteration of the project focuses solely on environmental issues and particularly on climate change. Among the participating artists are Lauren Bon, Mel Chin, Justin Brice Guariglia, and Meg Webster.

Wíwənikan…the beauty we carry is an exhibition of contemporary art of the First Nations people of what is now Maine and Maritime Canada. Collectively known as the Wabanaki, the Maliseet, Micmac, Passamaquoddy, Penobscot, and Abenaki, our people have lived in and paddled through our homeland for thousands of years. Basketmakers, canoe makers, carvers, painters, and beadworkers, the artists in this exhibition carry the beauty of their ancestors and culture into the future.

Wíwənikan…the beauty we carry is guest curated by Jennifer Neptune, Penobscot basketmaker and beadworker; and Kathleen Mundell, director of Cultural Resources. Curatorial advisors Gretchen Faulkner, director of the Hudson Museum at the University of Maine, and Theresa Secord, a Penobscot basketmaker, consulted on the exhibition. In addition, the curators collaborated with a team of community advisors: James Francis (Penobscot), Suzanne Greenlaw (Maliseet), Brenda Moore Mitchell (Passamaquoddy), Jennifer Pictou (Micmac), and Frances Soctomah (Passamaquoddy). Julia Gray served as project manager.

Presented by Waterville Creates! in partnership with the Colby Museum, I Am Not a Stranger: Portraits by Séan Alonzo Harris will include approximately fifty new studio photographs of Waterville residents. The portraits will appear at Common Street Arts, the Colby Museum, the Waterville Public Library, Railroad Square Cinema, and the Waterville Opera House, as well as additional institutions and local businesses. The exhibition will be accompanied by a free brochure and foldout poster containing images, a city map marking the project’s exhibition sites, and excerpts from participant interviews. This major new work by Harris, an accomplished photographer who is new to Waterville but has lived and worked in Maine for over twenty years, aims to represent the people of Waterville, build bridges across difference, and create a platform for storytelling and community reflection rooted in our shared space.