The World We Want Is Us

The World We Want Is Us presents large-scale projections onto the ICA’s facade by artists and Southerners On New Ground (SONG) members Shazza Berhan and Laura Chow Reeve. They co-created a series of visuals that combine text and imagery to envision a new future for Richmond. For instance, one depicts protest as a form of community care; another presents a future in which investments in the public good through health care, housing, education, and the arts leads to safer, happier communities. The artists hope for a time “in which conditions have changed and we no longer have to fight for dignity and basic safety, building on the work of local organizers, activists, and advocates who have been working for justice, reformation and liberation.”  

Projections will be visible on the ICA’s exterior each evening, weather permitting. Pedestrians may view from the Belvidere sidewalk or within the Resiliency Garden. Please maintain social distancing. 

The World We Want Is Us is a project for Commonwealth, and extends the exhibition’s questions about how our common resources are used to influence the wealth and well-being of our communities. It is presented by the ICA in conjunction with InLight. 

About the creative team: 

Shazza Berhan is an artist and VCU alumna who focuses on painting and drawing. She has worked with DC’s ARTECHOUSE and currently supports Operations at the American Art Therapy Association.  Laura Chow Reeve is a writer and illustrator known for her “Radical Roadmaps” series. She won the 2017 PEN/Robert J. Dau Short Story Prize for Emerging Writers and is a Senior Editor at Joyland Magazine. Both are members of Southerners on New Ground (SONG), a social movement nonprofit working to “build, sustain, and connect a southern regional base of LBGTQ people in order to transform the region.” Videometry Visuals is a project of Dustin Klein, a lighting designer and technical effects expert known both for his work supporting performing artists and his now-iconic projections onto the base of the Lee Monument in Marcus David Peters Circle in Richmond. The project evolved from SONG VA Statewide Organizer, Rebecca Keel’s role as a facilitator for Summer Sessions: Commonwealth in 2019, a public research and discussion series that considered the larger ideas of Commonwealth in relation to Richmond.