United Way for Greater Austin is pleased to announce that a portion of the collection from STRUGGLE, The Other Faces of the Texas Economic Miracle will be on display at Austin City Hall as part of The People’s Gallery Exhibition. The exhibition opens on February 27, 2015 and will run until January 7, 2016.
The 11th annual People’s Gallery Exhibition features more than 100 artworks from Austin-area artists, galleries, museums, and arts organizations displayed throughout the first three floors of Austin City Hall, a highly-visible venue that hosts more than 200,000 visitors annually.
“It is incredibly human to face challenges like living paycheck-to-paycheck, dealing with debt, or facing difficult choices with limited income.”
STRUGGLE, The Other Faces of the Texas Economic Miracle, was selected from approximately 1,250 artwork entries from more than 300 applicants.
The goal of this project is to show that struggle is not foreign–that it is incredibly human to face challenges like living paycheck to paycheck, dealing with debt, or facing difficult choices with limited income–and that we encounter people facing these challenges head-on in our everyday lives.
This collection of custom portraiture was commissioned by UWATX in honor of our 90th anniversary. We worked with local photographer Matthew Rainwaters to capture some of the unexpected faces of poverty in Austin.
“I wanted to illustrate the humanity in everyone without objectifying the working poor or holding them up as a spectacle,” Rainwaters said.
Our hope is that these powerful portraits will start a dialogue in our community about the daily struggles our friends and neighbors encounter as the working poor, as well as spread our mission to help reduce poverty and ensure all of greater Austin has access to economic opportunity.