Required Reading is an exhibition of text-based art that is focused on the visual possibilities of language. The exhibit brings together the work of eight artists who rearrange, revise, cover, obscure, and alter conventional communication structures. The works break the boundaries of our familiar writing system and invite the viewer to engage in the dialogue. Visual poetry with its various silences fills the room.

The traditional writing tools including letterpress, typewriters, bookbinding, and embroidery merge with digital era symbols and laser-cut machinery to create powerful narratives that elevate text to new heights.

Required Reading provides a space for reflection and insight on text through explorations of the fragility of communication. We live in a smartphone culture oversaturated with information in the form of text. The works in this exhibition take a break from the noise. Here, the written word and imagery live together in a beautiful but somewhat indiscernible world.

Artists in this exhibition touch upon subjects including misunderstandings resulting from mental illness or language barriers, how redactions or carving out of text can reveal inequities, conceal dreams, and make memories comprehensible. Objects in the show ask that we learn to ‘read’ the landscape to better coexist with the land we are connected to.

Artists: Anne Barnes, Julia Bloom, Kate Fitzpatrick, Emily Fussner, Scott Hazard, Leslie Holt, Michele Montalbano, and Ying Zhu.