Common Ground: Philippa Pham Hughes' "Hey, We Need to Talk!" at UMMA is an interactive exhibit that ponders how to build sustainable relationships

VISUAL ART REVIEW

UMMA visitors looking at framed arm hanging on wallpaper featuring large floral prints.

Photo by Mark Gjukich.

What does it mean to create a flourishing society? What does it mean to be American? What does it mean to be an artist in America, to produce artwork about the American condition?

These are a few of the questions posed to the audience in Hey, We Need to Talk!, an exhibit at the University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA). Curated by artist Philippa Pham Hughes, the current visiting artist for arts and civic engagement, the project requests that visitors participate in a dialogue about their views on topics such as: How do we build a sustainable future? How do we build meaningful connections in our communities? How do we overcome division?

Hughes has adorned the Eleanor Noyes Crumpacker Gallery with a custom decorative floral wallpaper. It is not just any floral wallpaper, but a composite of 50 individual flowers, representing each state flower. Not only that but it was designed by Ouizi (Louise Jones), an artist revered both internationally and locally for her large-scale floral murals, one of which can be found at 200 South Ashley Street. In a short essay, Hughes writes on the significance of the floral motif, noting their symbolic use throughout history in a variety of contexts, many of which included political revolution, making them “beautiful and powerful symbols of resistance, revolution, and resilience.”

Philippa Pham Hughes chats with visitors at UMMA's Hey, We Need to Talk!>
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Philippa Pham Hughes chats with visitors at UMMA's Hey, We Need to Talk! Photo by Daniel Ribar.

In addition to being a standalone work of art, the wallpaper also acts as a backdrop to highlight works selected from UMMA’s collection. It also serves to enhance the feeling that the space has been overhauled to create a comfortable environment that mimics a cozy living area. Plush chairs in a complementary color palette with floral throw pillows and tables are placed throughout the gallery. Signs at all gallery entrances inform visitors that food and beverages are uncustomarily allowed so that people may “break bread together.” Postcards and colored pencils for feedback were once available, but during my visit in early January, I did not see any left. Instead, large binders filled with plastic sleeves of event photographs and postcards filled out by gallery visitors allowed a glimpse into some of the responses gathered from months of participation.

Works in an array of media line the walls, from the easily recognizable stylized work of Jacob Lawrence and the pristine photographic work of Ansel Adams to documentary-style photographs capturing small-town Americana by Joanne Leonard, Howard Bond, Carl Weese, and D. James Galbraith. Two 3D works are included: a Qing dynasty Jingdezhen Kiln vase from the 18th century that complements the floral wallpaper in what fashion calls a “pattern clash,” and George Vargas’ hanging sculpture titled Michigan Worker, a combination of “welding goggles, metal, hanging bells, rusty bottle cap, pulleys, chains, and padlock mounted on plywood.” Doug Webb’s screenprint Cleanliness Is Next to Godliness juxtaposes the common visual language of a National Park photograph with personal hygiene items, while American Dream illustrates a sailboat inside a bathroom sink. Rodney Alan Greenblat’s 1989 screenprint Christina’s World renders the American dream as a brightly-colored cartoon world complete with a suburban home, television set, and shopping center.

The exhibit's introductory wall text reads: “In this deeply divided era, one of the hardest things you can do is talk to someone who thinks differently from you.” To complete the artwork, Hughes would like participants to have a conversation, hopefully with someone new, in the gallery space.

The exhibit is what Hughes refers to as a “social sculpture,” inspired by the four pillars of community proposed by University of Michigan professor Jenna Bednar: community, dignity, sustainability, and beauty. To further foster community conversations, several interactive events last fall were conceptualized to help visitors “engage in honest, courageous, common sense discussions about civic responsibility and national identity.

Philippa Pham Hughes joins Common Sense Diners at UMMA's Hey, We Need to Talk!> 
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Philippa Pham Hughes joins Common Sense Diners at UMMA's Hey, We Need to Talk! Photo by Daniel Ribar.

 A central component of the project was the Common Sense Diner: a weekly series of meals hosted at UMMA that took place between September and November 2024. Guided by Hughes, who has been hosting meals like these since 2016, the events were meant to bring people together to talk about divisive topics and hopefully find a way forward. At UMMA, 120 people came together each week to discuss the main topic: “What does it mean to be American right now?”

On October 9, 2024, two events were hosted at UMMA: “Hey! We Need to Puzzle!” in the Eleanor Noyes Crumpacker Gallery and “Make Art or Make Out" in the Forum Court. Consisting of a group puzzle activity with guided discussion, and speed dating/art-making with informal conversation, respectively, both events were developed by University of Michigan students as part of a final project for a course with Hughes. On October 10, "Radical Conversations" with Hughes, Pablo Helguera, Jenna Bednar, and Lexa Walsh at the Michigan Theater asked: “How do we transcend boundaries to cultivate an environment committed to fostering honest, caring, and courageous conversations? How are artists responding to these questions through their work?“ The conversation explored possibilities for community-building to “envision pathways to a flourishing society.”

Then, a book club hosted by the UMMA Student Advisory Board in late October explored Hughes’ reading list that accompanies the exhibit. In mid-November, an event held with Interfaith Round Table of Washtenaw County encouraged attendees to bring a lunch and discuss “various worldviews, about what flourishing, faith, and democracy mean to us, and what it would take for all people of goodwill to work together to create a flourishing society.”

Though the events, courses, and the bulk of the interactive facets of the exhibit are finished, the results of the project have culminated in a wealth of participation, evidenced in the large binders filled with responses from gallery visitors that now sit on living-room-style furniture for browsing.


Elizabeth Smith is an AADL staff member and is interested in art history and visual culture. 


Philippa Pham Hughes' "Hey, We Need to Talk!" on display at UMMA, 525 South State St, Ann Arbor, through February 9. Visit umma.umich.edu for more info.