Thanks to museology and the inevitable fragility of things conserved, preserved, and stored for posterity, we are conditioned to revere the sanctity of artwork. We take for granted that we must not touch, respect the bullet proof glass, don’t step over the line, and no flash photography please. This despite our instinctual nature to use all (or at least many) of our senses to experience new things.

Manifest ends its seventh season with a project intended to contradict this conditioning. By offering “Go Ahead… Touch Me” the gallery invites artists to share work that is deliberately touchable. We are curious just what this will bring to our gallery, and how our viewing public will react.

Media: Open to any and all traditional and non-traditional genre and media. The only limiting factor is that works must in some way address physical interaction by the public with the actual artwork.

Jury and Curator: Manifest’s selection process involves a complex two-part system. This exhibit will be juried by an anonymous 5-9 member panel of professional and academic advisors with a broad range of expertise. The jury will then pass along their recommendations to the exhibit curator who will make the final selections from the jury-approved pool.