Our Belonging by Ambz on view from May 3 - September 3 in the Robert C. and Susan Savage Community Gallery. Please join us for an artist reception on May 13 from 2 p.m.-4 p.m. that includes remarks from the artist and light refreshments.

Ambż is the first artist to have a solo exhibition in the new gallery who will present a body of work with deep and personal meaning. The artist found inspiration when she returned home to Findlay, Ohio after being away since 2005. As she considered what it meant to belong to the community as a business owner and an artist, Our Belonging was born. She covers handmade wooden panels with bodied acrylics,spray paint and repurposed paper to express what belonging means for her andother members of the community.

Exhibition Statement by Ambz

As business owners, organizations, and community members, we are leaders ensuring that all experience belonging. We can offer belonging to ourselves and in our communities by committing to tough conversations that challenge our ideologies and perspectives, continual policy development, and internal examination. Our belonging is established through our actions, through our language, and in environments that we cultivate for one another.

Birthing of Our Belonging in October 2019 was illuminated as an unannounced homecoming to the area I was once raised. Re-entering a community as the person I had become, belonging is much of an internal examination as it is an external one. Our Belonging is a symbolic embodiment, an expression of the times, for belonging. Built with repurposed papers, wood, and a mixture of heavy body acrylics and spray paint. Transmuting collective and personal experiences through storytelling and painting.
Our Belonging interviews and storytellers joined in July of 2020 as they served to shift belonging from my own personal journey to center the collective journey of Our Belonging. Through the storytellers lens, I have learned that, in a very predominantly white, conservative community, belonging is not something that is easily felt or visible for Indigenous, Black, People of Color (BIPOC), LGBTQ+ community members, and other historically underserved groups. We must belong to ourselves first before we can begin to belong in a community. 

Here is an offering for the community to engage and examine one's own relationship with belonging. Bridging our understanding of belonging between each of our own experiences is a personal feeling and experience essential to our very well-being and livelihood. Obtained through and offered by kindness, compassion, and equanimity, the more we belong to each other. 

We have an opportunity and responsibility to each other and the earth towards belonging. 
 

Sponsors

Our Belonging is organized by the Toledo Museum of Art as part of the Robert C. and Susan Savage Community Gallery which operates as a catalyst of creativity, mentorship and opportunity while fostering mutually-enriching relationships with local, regional and national artists with an emphasis on community engagement.