Live Performance by Tea Roots at 3:30pm
Parade to start at 5:15pm
Featuring a collection of works curated by Tea Roots.
Please RSVP at info@sherwoodengineers.com as space is limited
Tea Roots presents a collective exhibition featuring the work of emerging artists related to the theme Little Boxes, a commentary on homogeneity, deculturalization and gentrification in America. Today, homogeneity moves in reverse direction, from the sprawling suburban developments of post-World War II America back into the urban core, pushing diversity outwards. Everyday we see how technology bridges us, and just as much how it segregates, the latter very apparent in the effects of the Tech Boom and Silicon Valley on the surrounding Bay Area. As urban wealth continues to swell, increasingly so does its uniformity. It imposes itself upon persons who were never privileged enough to have the suburban dream before and who are not privileged enough to keep their urban homes now.
The concept of Little Boxes is at once a symbol of problematic social and political realities and a symbol of the tumultuous inner relationship between the individual self and the culture of conformity by which it is shaped and compromised. Little Boxes is about understanding the nature and locality of the status quo, its effects, those who fit within it and those who do not, either by choice or by political circumstance. Beyond the external realm, this investigation illuminates the timeless human struggle between conformity, limitation, creativity, self-definition, discovery and authenticity.
Tea Roots teams up with Sherwood Gallery to commemorate the San Francisco Chinese New Year Celebration, which originated in the 1860's and is now the largest Asian event in North America. The mixture of cultures that followed the wave of tens of thousands of Asian, Latin American, Australian and Europeans immigrants during California’s Gold Rush is just one part of history that has shaped and diversified this geographic area. To continue to honor Chinese culture in this annual tradition is one way San Francisco is valuing its unique roots and identity in the midst of changes that continue to threaten its diversity. The Little Boxes Exhibition Closing Night will coincide with Sherwood Gallery’s annual Chinese New Year Parade Event on February 20.
