DESTINEE WRIGHT
is an artist, activist, and serial entrepreneur whose work centers on amplifying voices from marginalized communities. She owns and operates Destinee Marketing, a social media marketing and consulting agency that supports small businesses, nonprofits, and grassroots organizations by providing consulting services, content curation, and social media strategies that connect brands with their communities.
Destinee began the Solidarity Cards Project after the 2016 election results. After noticing more and more people expressing their reactions to political causes, Wright began creatively capturing their feelings and concerns on blank index cards. The Solidarity Cards Project has evolved into an anonymous platform for participants to openly voice their thoughts about not only our current political climate, but a wide range of social justice and global issues. The Solidarity Cards Project has collected reactions from multiple sources, including The Women's March, University of Virginia students, city council meetings, arts and music festivals, and affected community members after August 12th in Charlottesville, VA.
Visitors to the gallery will have the chance to share their thoughts on cards that Destinee wrote specifically to reflect on Bearing Witness. Those who can’t visit in person are invited to submit their thoughts anonymously online HERE, or by clicking on the questions below.
"Bearing Witness" explores the injustices, trauma, and systemic violence that marginalized communities face every day in this country.
How does the exhibition make you feel? Write down the first things that come to mind.
Black Lives Matter's resurgence has sparked more conversations about race in this country than ever before. It has reinforced the necessity of dismantling oppressive white supremacist power structures and signified the importance of facing the truth about our country, learning its histories, and unlearning potentially harmful beliefs and ideologies.
What truths have you learned recently? What did you have to unlearn?
We are bearing witness to major political and global shifts that will have long-lasting effects. With this shift, we further realize the value and importance of our relationships and connections to our local, national, and global communities.
What does community mean to you? How are you nurturing your connection with your community?
Many of us are feeling uncertain, fearful, angry, and anxious about the current state of the world. These feelings are valid. However, to do the often challenging but necessary social justice work, we must also be intentional about finding and creating joy for ourselves. Audre Lorde once said, "The sharing of joy, whether physical, emotional, psychic, or intellectual, forms a bridge between the sharers which can be the basis for understanding much of what is not shared between them, and lessens the threat of their difference."