The Big Ideas

The Big Ideas: Identity Shifts

Who are you? This question has a whole different meaning in the opening years of the 21st Century. Race, gender, nationality–once concrete identifiers, are now, to some degree, open to interpretation and we've greeted these shifts with both celebration and dismay. The rise of religious extremism, the conflict between cultural identity and national borders, the rejection by many of traditional gender roles and labels, has plunged the world into a clash between embracing strict boundaries or celebrating fluidity and complexity. So we ask, "Who am I and where do I belong?" Is it more liberating to destroy definitions or embrace them? By disrupting the status quo and exploring deeply their sense of self, the artists in this series ask us to rethink how we know who we are, and what we think we can be.