Accessibility Through the Trees
April 18: Exhibition with Positive Street Art and Greater Manchester Chamber of Commerce
A foray into the cathartic and restrictive relations of a peoples to the natural aesthetic
Positive Street Art and the Greater Manchester Chamber (GMC) invite you to join them in celebrating the work of two of New Hampshire’s greatest treasures: Richella Simard and Amber Nicole Cannan, at an opening reception on Thursday, April 18, from 5-7 p.m. at the GMC’s Positive Street Art Satellite Gallery at 54 Hanover Street, Manchester.
This is the second gallery show Positive Street Art has curated at the Greater Manchester Chamber site with exhibitions expert, Yasamin Safarzadeh.
In this season’s installation, we look at what accessibility feels and looks like to people with physical and financial disabilities. The word accessible is often looked at as an additive to the ‘DEI’ intentions of organizational shifts toward being more inclusive. With these artists, we take a critical lens to the following:
Is the city of Manchester looking at all of its people when thinking about multimillion-dollar facelifts?
Does the city of Manchester pay equal attention to all of its neighborhoods when it clears sidewalks of snow and debris?
Do all of our state’s students get equal access to nature?
Do our community members only access nature through the screen of the pocket computer?
These are the questions we have been thinking about as we install and gingerly handle the works Richella and Amber Nicole have created, while thinking about both physical and existential access to the natural aesthetic. The artists and supporting team will lead the public in an “arts build” at the reception in order to engage in a more expressive and creative understanding of the impetus of the show.
About the Artists:
Richella Simard is a contemporary photographic artist working in Concord, New Hampshire. She is an art educator at Manchester High School West in Manchester, NH teaching interdisciplinary arts and community engagement. Richella is an avid outdoors person and her recent work incorporates a reflection of her vision and connection to the natural world. She primarily is a film photographer, creating work that uses film in both traditional practice as well as challenging the medium. She uses a medium format camera, 35mm and a 4×5 view camera to create her images. Her compositions convey the relationship between the natural and contrived environment always infused by the presence of humanity. Richella has moved on to explore many ways photography can be portrayed.
Amber Nicole Cannan
Amber Nicole Cannan is an entrepreneur, a biomedical artist, science communicator, art teacher and general community builder. She serves on Manchester City’s Highway Commission advocating for accessible sidewalks and bike lanes. She has a strong background in science and anatomy from Case Western Reserve University and Cleveland Institute of Art’s Biomedical Art program. This scientific background helps her connect with “nontraditional” thinkers. Amber Nicole Cannan officially founded Unchartered Tutoring, LLC in August of 2016 after running a number of private education sessions incorporating art and science together.Her artwork focuses around community, disability, science and education.
Special Guests ABLE NH.
To schedule an interview, to see more pictures or to sponsor an upcoming exhibition, email yasamin@positivestreetart.org or call 603.589.9003
