A 27-foot-long container truck featuring a rotating display of artwork will hit the road next week from New York City to embark on a cross-country exhibition about the myriad facets of bodily autonomy and acceptance.
Spanning photography, textile work, painting, collage, and other work by more than 200 artists, the traveling art show is part of Body Freedom For Every(Body) — a three-month project spearheaded by local arts organization Project for Empty Space (PES) to celebrate all body types, embrace individual identity, and promote community building, coast-to-coast.
Although the show does not focus on voting or political campaigns, PES co-founders Rebecca Pauline Jampol and Jasmine Wahi told Hyperallergic that the synchronous timing with election season was an intentional response to the recent rise in bans and proposed legislation affecting individual control over one’s body.
“This is about community building, and participating in a conversation that is neither new nor ending with the election,” Jampol and Wahi said.
The project launches next Wednesday, September 4, at a noon kick-off event in Times Square, where attendees can view the Body Freedom Truck covered top-to-bottom in exterior vinyl wrapping designed by Barbara Kruger and filled with a rotating selection of prints, paintings, and small sculptures by artists like Ana Mendieta, Andy Coombs, Shahzia Sikander, and Ryan Mcginley, among others.
Some of the work that will be on view will include a photograph from Yolanda Hoskey’s True American (2024–ongoing) series focusing on the intersections of gender, race, and national identity; Tuesday Smillie’s “The Sway of the Moon” (2024) cyanotype “aligning Trans identity with the heavenly body who orbits [the Earth],” (in the artist’s words); and Texas Isaiah Horatio-Valenzuela’s photograph “Ne Me Quitte Pas (Nice Dream) (Nina’s Symphony)” (2023) about the dreamscapes of Black transmasc individuals.
The launch will be followed by two days of programming at New York University’s Center for Black Visual Culture and the AIDS Memorial Park. On September 10, the truck will leave the Big Apple to weave its way through 11 venues around the country in states including New Jersey, Missouri, Texas, and California, before concluding in mid-December in Miami Beach, Florida.
At each stop, the truck will be open from noon until 8pm, inviting viewers to see a selection of art that will be rotated out about 35 times during its tour. A studio in the back of the vehicle will host recorded fireside chats reflecting on related issues.
Body Freedom For Every(Body) comes during a moment of heightened concern over bodily autonomy in the United States, especially for LGBTQ+ individuals and women, as conservative lawmakers continue to roll back reproductive freedoms and reduce access to gender-affirming health services.
Next year, Jampol and Wahi hope to continue the project for a second leg that involves various one-off stops that the truck won’t be able to get to this fall.
“We want to make sure that people understand that the 2024 election, or any other political milestone for that matter, is not the end all be all of bodily freedoms and our joy,” Jampol and Wahi said.
