'PINK PROGRESSION: COLLABORATIONS'

Part 4: 'Untitled'

By Sangeeta Reddy and Jodie Roth Cooper

‘This piece represents marginalized communities who create meaning out of very little.’

By John Moore, Senior Arts Journalist

The Arvada Center has opened its first major in-person event since the COVID19 shutdown began in mid-March, the long-planned “Pink Progression: Collaborations,” running through November 8.

The exhibit, which has taken over all three of the Arvada Center's indoor galleries and spans 10,000 square feet, features more than 120 mostly Colorado-based artists of all gender identities working in groups of up to four in celebration of the upcoming 100th anniversary of the passage of the 19th Amendment.

Ratified on August 18, 1920, the 19th Amendment guarantees and protects women's right to vote. But this timely exhibit also explores the complex and ongoing struggle for universal suffrage in today's cultural context.

For the past few days, we have been spotlighting four collaborating artist teams, and their contributions to "Pink Progression."

TODAY’S FEATURED COLLABORATION:

'UNTITLED'

Sangeeta Reddy and Jodie Roth Cooper

Littleton and Florissant

'The suffrage struggle is as important today as ever before and must evolve as needs do.'

• Tell us about your piece: The collaboration began with an idea of a weaver bird’s nest imagined in the rusted steel triangles of Jodie Roth Cooper’s work as they form an organically rhythmic structure; of incorporating scavenged and recycled materials such as bicycle inner tubes and textured weavings crotchet growing out of and attaching to the iron as nature’s binders and limpets do – mollusks, tree roots or moss on rock, or flowing sphagnum moss hanging in swamps; to recreate the sense of freedom that hanging things have, in natural and undisturbed environments. 
• What materials did you use? Recycled bicycle inner tubes, cloth, hemp, wool, acrylic fiber and string on steel. (Pictured, from left: Sangeeta Reddy and Jodie Roth Cooper.)
• What are your themes? Incubation, nesting and protection – things that are especially meaningful as we are isolating; marginalized communities at a subsistence level creating meaning out of very little.
• What did you learn about collaboration? That there are so many ways to collaborate, how ideas and creativity transcend distance both physical and metaphysical, how ideas and materials build upon one another. The individual collaborations really are a microcosm to the much larger collaboration of artists and ideas coming together to form a jostling, convivial whole.
• What does achieving "suffrage" mean to you in today’s context? Suffrage today during its 100th anniversary, while not having lost its original struggle, must embrace the voter suppression that is so intertwined with marginalization of communities of color, gender and gross economic inequities. The struggle is as important today as ever before and must evolve as needs do.
• What, to you, is the cumulative impact of "Pink Progression"? That artists and ideas are alive and thinking and engaging with important and necessary events as well as with each other. Cross-pollination is essential to our survival and to thriving.  A whole made up of multiple individual cells all working toward the same purpose is a powerful thing.
• Last words? Both Jodie and I have moved to the U.S. as young people who had roots elsewhere. Jodie moved here in 1999, and I in 1978. An immigrant, even more than a native-born person, seeks more intensely to seek a place of comfort, of fitting in, of standing out, of finding a place within or without the social fabric with varying degrees of success or failure. For me, this piece brings with it memory, materials, the instinct to scavenge and recycle, and to make a world out of both desirable and un-regarded materials.      
• Visit their web sites: Sangeeta Reddy and Jodie Roth Cooper

'An immigrant, even more than a native-born person, seeks more intensely to seek a place of fitting in and standing out.'

“Pink Progression” rose out of the 2017 Womxn's March (pictured at right) to inspire social change and explore ideas of feminism, equality, inclusivity, gender identity, unity, and community through creative expression. Participating artists fused their narratives into multidimensional works ranging from site-specific installations, video, performance and traditional fine arts.

“ 'Progression' refers to the hope for progress in the issues that we explore, as well as progressing away from prejudice and erroneous stereotypes,” said curator and artist Anna Kaye. In an interview with 5280 Magazine, she added: “The theme of collaboration was really important because it inspires social change. Nobody can create social change unless they have support.”

John Moore was named one of the 12 most influential theater critics in the U.S. by American Theatre Magazine during his time at The Denver Post. He also is the founder of The Denver Actors Fund, and is now contributing reports on the arts community for ArvadaCenter.Org. Reach him at culturewestjohn@gmail.com.

READ THE FULL SERIES:

• PART 1: Introducing Moe Gram + Grow Love

• PART 2: Jina Brenneman + Margaret Kasahara
• PART 3: Julia Rymer + Drew Austin
• PART 4: Sangeeta Reddy and Jodie Roth Cooper

'PINK PROGRESSION' PARTICIPATING ARTISTS:

• Deidre Adams + Brooke Atherton
• Judy Anderson + Ginny Hoyle + Christopher Hecker
• Theresa Anderson + Alicia Ordal + Kim Shively
• Tya Alisa Anthony + Kim Putnam
• Fawn Atencio + Bonnie Stolzmann + Sarah Wallace Scott
• Mindy Bray + Tonia Bonnell
• Trine Bumiller + Kathryn Winograd
• Katie Caron + Lisa DiMichele
• Irene Delka McCray + Tree Bernstein
• Sally Elliott + Katie Elliott/3rd Law Dance + L. Ashwyn Corris
• Corrina Espinosa + Elisa Groglio + Joanna Bugajska
• Bonnie Ferrill Roman + Judy Gardner
• Ashley Frazier + Becky Wareing Steele
• Steven Frost + Frankie Toan
• Sarah Fukami + Brooky Blunt + Nico Wilkinson
• Melissa Furness + Rian Kerrane
• Jennifer Ghormley + Victoria Eubanks
• Ania Gola Kumor + Leah Swenson
• Susan Goldstein + Gayla Lemke
• Moe Gram + Grow Love
• Jane Guthridge + Voices of Light Chamber Choir
• Kim Harrell + Lynda Ladwig
• Ana Maria Hernando + Amie Knox
• Veronica Hererra + Lola Montejo
• Deborah Howard + Laurel McMechan
• Micaela Ironshell-Dominguez + Renee Chacon-Millard
• Rochelle Johnson + Sylvia Montero
• Samara Johnson + Alanna Lacey + Samantha Bares
• Tsehai Johnson + Leslie D. Boyd
• Margaret Kasahara + Jina Brenneman
• Anna Kaye + Sarah Wallace Scott
• Sammy Lee + Megan Gafford
• Jessica Loving + Rachel Doniger
• Marsha Mack + John Roemer
• Virginia Maitland + Melanie Walker + George Peters
• Julie Maren + Jessica Drenk
• Laleh Mehran + Jayne Butler
• Susanne Mitchell + Janelle W. Anderson
• Sophie Lynn Morris + Hannah Untiedt
• Jennifer Pettus + Rebecca Vaughan
• Sandra Phillips + Virginia Folkestad
• Julie Puma + Patricia Mclnroy
• Sangeeta Reddy + Jodie Roth Cooper
• Susan Rubin + Peter Illig
• Martha Russo + Tina Suszynski + Anna Suszynski + Emma Hardy
• Julia Rymer + Drew Austin
• Dylan Scholinski + Daphne Scholinski
• Sue Simon + Mark Brasuell
• The Great Shout
• Autumn T. Thomas + Tricia Waddell
• Susan Vaho + Elaine Stires
• Sherry Wiggins + Luís Filipe Branco
• Kate Woodliff O’Donnell + Stacey Stormes
• Belgin Yucelen + Anne Waldman + Akin Koksal