Menu
On View

On View

On View

Proposal for a 28th Amendment? Is it Possible to Amend an Unequal System? 

September 28, 2024–January 26, 2025

 
————————  
With this incomplete participatory exhibition, artists Alex Strada and Tali Keren ask visitors to critically engage with the U.S. Constitution and pose two questions: What 28th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution would you propose? And: Do you think it is possible to amend an unequal system? Opening with the phrase “We the People,” the Constitution was written in 1787 by and for wealthy white male property owners, and to date, only 27 amendments have been ratified to change the document. This legacy and the embedded issues of structural racism, settler-colonial violence, heteropatriarchy, reproductive justice, and the absence of the climate are illuminated here in videos featuring legal scholars. 
Central to the installation are sonic soapbox sculptures that build upon the history of the soapbox as a site of collective struggle, while also emphasizing listening, mutuality, and access. These objects emit an in-progress oral archive of responses to the project’s questions that have been recorded by visitors and will accrue over the course of the exhibition. Visitors are invited to engage by listening and by using the QR code to add to this work by recording their responses. 
Proposal for a 28th Amendment? Is it Possible to Amend an Unequal System? is activated through public workshops Strada and Keren will develop in collaboration with Project Row Houses. These gatherings bring people together to collectively consider, question, and debate systemic repair, radical change, and abolition to imagine more equitable futures specific to Texas and beyond. 
The installation was originally commissioned by the Queens Museum in New York City. Site-specific iterations have traveled to the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco and the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum in Connecticut. With Project Row Houses as a central hub, elements of the project are on view throughout Houston at the Houston Museum of African American Culture and Lawndale creating space for civic dialogue across the city amidst a critical election year.  
 
All fabricated soapboxes were generously donated by Prairie A& M University School of Architecture Fabrication Center 

 

Round 57: Southern Survey Biennial II

UPCOMING: October 12, 2024–February 9, 2025

Project Row Houses (PRH) proudly presents the second iteration of the Southern Survey Biennial, a comprehensive survey of recent works by contemporary visual artists living and working in “The South.” One artist will be selected for The Dr. Dina Alsowayel and Tony Chase PRH Southern Survey Biennial Prize for $25,000.Participating artists for Round 57 include Rabeeha Adnan (Richmond, VA), Nico Aziz (New Orleans, LA), Violette Bule (Houston, TX), Carolina Rodriguez Meyer (Miami, FL), Amy Schissel (Miami, FL), Martin Wannam (Durham, NC), Jamire Williams (Houston, TX)Round 57: Southern Survey Biennial curated by Kimberli Gant Curator of Modern & Contemporary Art, Brooklyn Museum of Art.

HISTORY

While renovating the PRH site, the founders began to focus on how to infuse a visible presence of art into the project. The earliest iteration of this was the Drive By exhibition, conceived by Jesse Lott. With the windows and doors still boarded up during renovations, artists were invited to create installations on the exteriors of the houses. This tradition evolved into what we call Art Rounds. 

Project Row Houses engages and serves a diverse community of emerging and mid-career local, national, and international artists. By encouraging them to expand their practice outside of the studio, PRH helps artists evidence new methods of bringing communities together and engaging audiences in important dialogues. Today, the Public Art Program has grown to include commissioned projects, residencies, and fellowships that pass on the lessons that have made Project Row Houses a model for preserving identity, history and cultural richness.

The Art Houses and Community Gallery are open Wednesday through Sunday from Noon-5pm through the duration of their viewing periods.

Past Rounds

2020's

2020's

2020–
present

The pain and uncertainty in our country, from COVID-19 to social unrest, is undeniable. We are struggling and a reckoning happening in the country. Art is an integral part of redirecting that struggle…

2010's

2010's

2019–
2010

Though creative resistance is nothing new, contemporary artists and activists have built upon the longstanding legacy of cultural organizing and social movement…

2000's

2000's

2009–
2000

Social practice brings together a group of artists deeply engaged in collaborative practices that speak to social issues related to identity, politics, activism. “Social practice” emerged from academia to…

1990's

1990's

1999–
1993

Since its founding in 1993, PRH has sought to engage artists in a process that connects them directly with residents, neighborhood institutions, and the environment of a low-income neighborhood…

Back To Top ↑

Help Materialize
Sustainable Opportunities
In Marginalized Communities.

Donate Today →