Manifest Differently

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38 Artists & Poets

interrogate the history and

legacies of Manifest Destiny,

to unleash a

Cultural Revolution

Led by Clarion Alley Mural Project (CAMP), Manifest Differently is a multifaceted project that interrogates the expansionist ideology of Manifest Destiny using a humanities framework of history, storytelling, visual, literary, and media arts to advance an inclusive and just society.

This multi-site exhibition is being presented fall 2023 – summer 2024 at seven locations: Clarion Alley Mural Project (CAMP), Artists’ Television Access (ATA), Minnesota Street Project (MSP), Book Castle, the Beat Museum, and the San Francisco Public Library, accompanied by a website and tour.

Audiences will be introduced to this history and the forward vision through the lens of a multigenerational team of artists and poets who bring voices not often included in the dominant narrative:

Where:

SF

When:

Sept 2023

– Mar 2024

Clarion Alley Mural Project

Sept–Oct 2023

Jan & Mar 2024

Artists’ Television Access

Feb–‍Mar 2024

Minnesota Street Project

It was a journalist, John O’Sullivan, who coined the phrase “Manifest Destiny” back in 1845 while writing about a fierce dispute between Britain and the United States government. Both of them claimed the right to the same slice of unceded Indigenous land that settlers called the “Oregon Country” — a huge stretch of the Pacific coast running north from California to well into Canada.

O’Sullivan might have thought he was just describing a spat of foreign affairs, but his words bore the MUCH deeper assumptions that all Euro-Americans carried: ideas about morality, about divinity, a particular definition of ‘freedom’ that centered their desires for wealth, and — above all — a presumed superiority of white men.

And none of that was new in 1845. But it was an intoxicating combination of words: Manifest. Destiny. Seen through these glasses, white settlers’ expansion into other people’s territory was viewed not only as a triumph for “liberty”... but also something that was completely foreordained. And inevitable.

Your 9th grade textbook just might have left a few details out.

500 years

The stage was (re-)set for another century: if there is presumed greatness to white Americans, then Empire is good, and taking over the territory of all other peoples is just the natural, happy ending.

And yet this ‘greatness’ would justify the forced removal of Indigenous Nations from their homeland, the genocide of their people, the ongoing enslavement of African peoples, an ecocide of the natural environment, and very many subsequent claims to control the Pacific islands. Not to mention, a mass-migration of white settlers to the West also lined the pockets of industrialists, who exploited labor competition to their benefit: to build railroads, work the land, build new cities, and extract the abundant natural resources on these new lands they took.

The storytellers you will meet — in eight months of programming & events — recognize the histories and experiences of those who did not benefit from the superpower nation that was born of Manifest Destiny. They live in the legacy of it, they experience the weight of its inherited disenfranchisement and trauma, and they are responding to it with art. And from this position and place they invite you to join in. Participate. Use your senses to experience their newest art. Seek out the public murals that will soon dot San Francisco. Remember. Imagine. Take advantage of these next few months to see a world that manifests differently.

Through the generous support of

Manifest Differently: September 2023 to April 2024