#ICPConcerned: Global Images for Global Crisis

On March 13, 2020 the global coronavirus pandemic brought life as we know it to an abrupt halt. Wanting to do more than virtual exhibition tours, ICP announced the #ICPConcerned open call on March 20th, an invitation for people to make, upload, and tag images on Instagram of what was going on in their lives wherever they were. What resulted was more than sixty thousand submissions from countries as far flung as France, Singapore, Argentina, Nigeria, Canada, and Iran. Given the overwhelming response and guided by the organization’s founding principle to be a home for socially and politically-minded, transformative visual art, the staff quickly set about not only curating a digital exhibition, but also printing and mounting images for an “un-visible” show in the galleries that no one—at least in the foreseeable future—would visit. “This is the story and a celebration of a wild idea, dreamed up in deep uncertainty, at the onset of what turned out to be a tumultuous year.” So begins David Campany, Managing Director of Programs at ICP, in his introduction to #ICPConcerned: Global Images for Global Crisis (October 19, 2021), which chronicles the museum’s innovative #ICPConcerned exhibition.