BY KAREN BOSSICK
Sometimes our initial take on someone who is different can instigate feelings of fear or confusion. And they can lead to misunderstandings.
Local author, scholar and social activist Sarah Sentiles will spin off this to offer a Creative Jump-in titled “Seeing Other People: Photography, Difference and Ethics at the Limit” at 5:30 p.m. Tuesday, Jan. 30, at the Ketchum Innovation Center, 311 1st Avenue North.
The Creative Jump-In is part of the Sun Valley Center for the Arts’ new BIG IDEA project, “This Land is Whose Land?” which tackles such issues as immigration and refugees.
“At this point in history, when we seemed more inclined to be defined by our differences, Sarah’s presentation promises to offer some tools for us to find grace in our shared humanity,” said Kristin Poole, artistic director for The Center. “Her focus is to help us consider others with curiosity and interest, rather than fear and resistance.”
Sentilles will focus on photography’s historical and ongoing role in constructing “others.” And she will explore how art and theology offer resources for resisting the forms of observation, capture and certainty encouraged by drones and other machines of war. She will also propose an ethics capable of seeing difference as divine.
Sentilles is a writer, critical theorist and scholar of religion who is particularly interested in the role that language, images and practices play in oppression, violence, social transformation and justice movements.
The author's book, “Breaking Up with God: A Love Story,” describes how she came to take a close look with her relationship with God even as she was in the ordination process to become an Episcopal priest.
Her book “Draw Your Weapons” is a meditation on art and war. It asks such questions as How can we live in the face of so much suffering? And, what difference can one make in this beautiful, imperfect and imperiled world?
Sentilles earned a bachelor’s degree at Yale University and master’s and doctoral degrees at Harvard. She’s taught at Pacific Northwest College of Art, Portland State University, California State University Channel Islands and Willamette University.
She and her husband moved to the Wood River Valley in November 2016.
The Creative Jump-In is free, but donations are appreciated. For more information, call 208-726-9491.