122 Conversations: Person to Person, Art Beyond Borders

MSP Terminal 1, Ticketing/Departures Lobby
Sep 10, 2019 - Dec 05, 2019

What does connection, humanity, or love mean to you? How can we embody these ideas in our lives? These are the questions that Twin Cities-based, internationally acclaimed artist Anne Labovitz is driven to answer with 122 Conversations. In this installation, color and conversation seamlessly integrate, encouraging audiences to contemplate human connection. This artist-led project was organized with the Tweed Museum of Art, Duluth, and Duluth Sister Cities International.

122 Conversations is a culmination of the artist’s six-year, world-spanning pilgrimage to utilize cross-cultural exchange as a means for positive change. This undertaking resulted in 70 largescale sculptural scrolls derived from 60 interviews with people from six cities across the globe – including Thunder Bay, Canada; Duluth, Minnesota; Växjö, Sweden; Petrozavodsk, Russia; Rania, Iraqi Kurdistan; and Ohara Isumi-City, Japan. Labovitz manifests these conversations with graffiti-like text lines, each mark individually created as a response to the revelation that personal experiences create global connections. The individuality of this approach reflects the intimacy of the interview topics: generosity, friendship, reciprocity, community building, and emotional exchange. The addition of color is representative of Labovitz’ established practice as a painter and printmaker, an intuitive response to conversation embodied in formal elements of composition and contrasting tone. These elements culminate in a metaphor of our hopes, dreams, love, and connections in seemingly endless scrolls. It is the artists aim to unite her audience through a common experience, one that humanizes us through the process of seeing and listening. As you fly off to your destination, you are encouraged to consider: What connects you to humanity and how will you express this connection?