By Olivia Jade Khoury-Román
We are taught that visual and auditory stimuli both occur in the form of waves. Although the two stimuli are very different in terms of composition, wave forms share similar characteristics that are especially important to our visual and auditory perceptions.
This past Friday at the Women in Light exhibit, I was hearing voices amongst visual art. (I promise you, I say this in the most non-schizophrenic way possible)
Women in Light is a collective of photographers using their power of visual capturing to “discuss, reflect, and engage with our community what it means to be a woman.” Their objective is to discuss their work through a woman’s perspective: raw and real. The opening night for the third annual exhibit was this past Friday, February 24th, located at Luxe Gallery in downtown San Diego.
I walked into the fifth floor of the building and into the gallery. Immediately, I converged into a room with intimidating white walls decorated with photographs staring back at me intently and fiercely. There is no justice in giving the white and mundane walls the credit of rendering the photographs to stand out. The work these women produced demands your attention. Students, teachers, lovers, girlfriends, wives, caretakers, WOMEN; the voices of them all bounced between onlookers and settled long enough in frame to tell you their story, until they ensorcelled you to the next artist.
In our own artistic capacities, we tend to measure our perceptions based on what is familiar to us. As a writer I tend to think in terms of ‘voice’ for words used and thoughts projected. As a woman, my natural tendency to empathize gives me the poetic ability to personify and give life to the intangible. As a lover of art, I learned that voice, ironically, lives in many shapes, forms, and mediums.
So, what is a voice? A breath of song, a string plucked by our soul, a note played on our heartstrings? Voices are not only pertaining to what we project from our vocal chords, use to write letters of love into memory, or even serenade the baby into the moon’s arms at night. A voice is not only auditory stimuli. A voice exists where there is truth reaching out: through a photo, a sculpture, in the movement of dance. A voice is a marker of identity and individualism, the echoing of its bellows bringing us together in its reflections. I heard voices in the room of Women in Light. I felt the waves crashing onto me, all at once, in the roaring sound of illuminated truths.
The exhibit was a melting pot of sensations and artistic boundaries. In photography, there was poetry. One of the photographers, Rebecca Maria Goldschmidt, beautifully combined the sound of poetry and the “visualization of the magical and misunderstood”, integrating the romance of poetry in her ideology of her piece. Another, Jaylinette Alicante, captured the reality of unrelenting diversity through the dichotomy of architecture and women. Each piece in the gallery opened up the dialogue of perception through art, thus creating bridges between the truths of these women and the community to hear them loud and clear.
We are taught that visual and auditory stimuli both occur in the form of waves. Although the two stimuli are very different in terms of composition, wave forms share similar characteristics that are especially important to our visual and auditory perceptions. It isn’t until we are able to bridge the gap between senses can we truly understand perception. Watching sounds being made (music), feeling the warmth of light on our face, or even hearing the voices of women through photography. It isn’t until the moment we understand the infinite possibilities and similarities of perception do we understand the infinite possibilities of ourselves as women, and one another.
Luxe Gallery:
V-bldg San Diego
1081 16th Street, 5th Floor
M-Thurs 12-9 PM
Friday 12-4PM
Open February 24 to March 24, 2017
Opening Reception: Fri, Feb 24, 2017 @ 6PM
Discussion Panel (about representation of women in photography and the media): March 23 6 p.m – 7 p.m.
For inquires, please email: [email protected]
