CURATORIAL NOTE

If You See Something, Say Something. Plastered across New York City subways and buses since 2002, the Metropolitan Transit Authority’s anti-terrorist ad campaign orders us all to become watchful eyes and ears of the state.

Welcome to the 21st century, where New York takes its place among other major cities around the world as a global center of surveillance, fear, and distrust. A post 9/11 century where Americans are told to watch each other—on the street, on reality television, on closed circuit cameras—rather than our disintegrating constitutional rights, environment, economy, social welfare system, or the unjust war that was deceitfully waged behind a “bodyguard of lies” in the wake of 9/11.

Like a Greek chorus for our time, the Hunter College Integrated Media Arts MFA program has adopted the MTA’s urgent demand for our annual spring show, to be held on May 1-3, 2007. If You See Something, Say Something presents a range of creative responses to the troubling issues and anti-democratic developments that have punctuated the first decade of the new millennium.

The artwork in the show—including new media, installations, film and video, photography, painting, and journalistic projects—reflects our diversity of voices and media. From the abstracted gaze of surveillance, the march of militarism, or the visual violence of our collective dreams to the concrete walls of the West Bank, the shrill voices of reality TV and hate-mongering pundits, the worldly wisdom of taxi drivers in New York, London, and Mumbai, or unpublished letters to the editor seeing the light of day, the exhibit represents our current contributions toward a global dialogue of criticism, protest, and liberation.

These are dangerous times. Too many of the perils we face are homegrown. We hope you will see and say something, too.