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Gallery Wendi Norris

June 5 - June 30, 2008

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161 Jessie Street San Francisco, CA 94105
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Public Safety
Gallery Reception: June 05, 6:00 to 9:00 pm Anyone can tell you that the events of September 11th have permanently altered the American public's barometer for experiencing fear. Similarly, since the Iraq war and occupation, the United States and its allies are now predominantly viewed with fear and suspicion by people elsewhere. Fear grows as the common currency of geopolitics, while civility, compassion and empathy recede. We in America are subjected to color coded alerts, pre-administered directives on government recommended levels of anxiety. We are subjected to ever more vigilant physical searches and electronic screenings of our persons during our travels. And to insulate ourselves from the other we erect walls along borders, literally and metaphorically fracturing and dividing both identities and geography. Do these measures ensure or bolster real public safety? So far we have very judiciously identified our enemies and created ways to track, detain, or eliminate them, manufacturing state-of-the-art detection devices and methods for profiling. Public Safety will examine these devices and methods, and re-structure them as tools that will provide an alternative kind of security, tools that are conducive to a de-escalation of anxieties. The redesigning of these instruments and re-application of these techniques will fall into three categories: Disarm, Countermeasures, and Meditations.