Lalla Essaydi, Moroccan, b. 1956 (lives in New York City), Les Femmes du Maroc, #14, 2005, C41 print mounted on aluminum, 30 x 40 in. Mead Art Museum, Purchase with Wise Fund for Fine Arts. 2007.13. Photo: Courtesy Howard Yezersky Gallery, Boston, MA

AMHERST, MA.- Mead Art Museum at Amherst College presents The Third Space: Cultural Identity Today, on view through June 8, 2008. This exhibition considers cultural identity in a global society. It explores the effects of displacement, alienation, exile, diaspora, transnationalism, hybridity, and cosmopolitanism. The title The Third Space is taken from the work of the influential cultural and post-colonial theorist Homi Bhabha; it refers to the interstices between colliding cultures, a liminal space “which gives rise to something different, something new and unrecognizable, a new area of negotiation of meaning and representation.” In this “in-between” space, new cultural identities are formed, reformed, and constantly in a state of becoming. Artists at work in “the third space” speak of a creative edge that derives from the condition of being in a place that simultaneously is and is not one’s home. Organized by Carol Solomon Kiefer, Curator of European Art at the Mead, the exhibition consists of fifteen works by nine artists. Included are pieces from the permanent collection and loans in a range of artistic media – video, photography, painting, and installation.

The Third Space: Cultural Identity Today is part of a year-long interdisciplinary initiative at Amherst College on the theme of “Art and Identity in the Global Community.” Two of the artists in the show, Indonesian Entang Wiharso and Ghanaian-German Daniel Kojo, are resident Amherst College Copeland Fellows for the 2007-2008 academic year. French-Algerian Zoulikha Bouabdellah is resident Amherst College visiting artist for the spring semester. The other artists in the exhibition are Moroccan Lalla Essaydi, Palestinian Mona Hatoum, Vietnamese-American Dinh Q. Lê, Iranian-American Shirin Neshat, Nigerian-Cuban-American Maria Magdalena Campos-Pons, and Native American Jaune Quick-To-See Smith.The exhibition is generously supported by the Hall and Kate Peterson Fund, the Templeton Photography Fund, and the Amherst Arts Series Fund.