Tavares Strachan chose the phrase WE ARE IN THIS TOGETHER to ground a sweeping art initiative five years ago. But at this particular moment in time, the universal abstracted text has taken on new significance as a truism for local, national and global realities.

Internationally renowned artist Tavares Strachan has launched Together, a far-reaching community engagement project in Telluride, Colorado, informed by his long-term collaboration with local residents. The project is conceptually grounded in an obliquely simple message: WE ARE IN THIS TOGETHER. As a call for unity, the project gestures to a utopic provocation, but for the artist, it is a call to action. The Together project incorporates philanthropy, social engagement, conversations, and sculpture. New York's Marian Goodman Gallery is showing an online presentation of related artworks and material.

In early March 2020, the discussion surrounding the Together project pivoted as politicians, companies, organizations, and individuals invoked the phrase during the pandemic. The project culminates in a text-based neon sculpture, WE ARE IN THIS TOGETHER, which will be sited publicly on the slopes outside of Mountain Village.

The sculpture is a call to arms: an anthem for our political, social, economic, cultural moment. Its universalizing message is humanist and grounded in the idea that collectivity, unity, integrity, and identity are inextricably bound. This is a mode of address—typical of Strachan’s lexicon—that acts as an effort to mobilize community and societal change, and make a gesture of solidarity.

This is the first site-specific contemporary art project produced by The Telluride Foundation, working in collaboration with the Ah Haa School for the Arts and the town of Mountain Village.

“This project seeks to bring the community together and to add to the narrative of Telluride. I was interested in shedding light on local issues around housing, climate, food, education, and immigration. It is about coming together to research and address some of these questions at a local level that resonates more broadly in our current climate. In this moment of nationalism, it is particularly difficult to manage global issues without zooming in on local issues,” said artist Tavares Strachan.

“The artist has created a text based sculpture that encapsulates the ethos of our work in a profound way. We are proud to be a partner in this project. When a community comes together to address issues toward a common goal, they can solve their most difficult challenges,” said Paul Major, Telluride Foundation.

Working with The Telluride Foundation, the Together project will include philanthropic efforts including fundraising for local food banks. More info: weareinthistogether.co

Strachan was born in 1979 in Nassau, Bahamas, and currently lives and works between New York City and Nassau. He received a BFA in Glass from the Rhode Island School of Design in 2003 and an MFA in Sculpture from Yale University in 2006.

Strachan’s work has been featured in numerous solo exhibitions including You Belong Here, Prospect 3. Biennial, New Orleans; The Immeasurable Daydream, Biennale de Lyon, Lyon; Polar Eclipse, The Bahamas National Pavilion 55th Venice Biennale, Venice; Seen/Unseen, Undisclosed Exhibition, New York; Orthostatic Tolerance: It Might Not Be Such a Bad Idea if I Never Went Home Again, MIT List Visual Arts Center, Cambridge; among others. He has been the recipient of numerous awards including 2019-20 Artist in Residence at the Getty Research Institute, 2018 Frontier Art Prize, and the Allen Institute’s inaugural artist-in-residence in 2018, 2014 LACMA Art + Technology Lab Artist Grant, 2008 Tiffany
Foundation Grant, 2007 Grand Arts Residency Fellowship, and 2006 Alice B. Kimball Fellowship.