{"id":22430,"date":"2021-03-01T10:00:00","date_gmt":"2021-03-01T10:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/artsjoco.org\/acjc\/?p=22430"},"modified":"2020-08-10T19:19:21","modified_gmt":"2020-08-10T19:19:21","slug":"just-as-i-am-exploring-life-with-down-syndrome","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/artsjoco.org\/acjc\/just-as-i-am-exploring-life-with-down-syndrome\/","title":{"rendered":"Just As I Am: Exploring Life with Down Syndrome"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Amy Allison, Vice President of Education and Advocacy for the Down Syndrome Guild of Greater Kansas City, said she often starts a conversation about her work by asking people to identify a person they know who lives with Down syndrome. Many, she said, can\u2019t. Their understanding of Down syndrome instead comes from, perhaps, seeing someone at the grocery store or seeing a video on social media. These types of isolated encounters fail to expose people to the full complexity of Down syndrome and the people who live with it\u2014and Allison said the Just As I Am Gallery, which will be coming to Johnson County in March 2021, aims to change that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Just As I Am is a combination of portraits, short films, and written stories from people of all ages who have Down syndrome, along with, as appropriate, their families and caregivers. The exhibit asks viewers to see people with Down syndrome as they are\u2014challenging stereotypes and preconceptions and asking viewers to engage with individuals and their stories rather than preexisting categories.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The work in the exhibit was created as part of the 7 Billion Ones<\/a> project, which uses photography, narrative, and video to tell stories of people from all over the world, but photographer Randy Bacon<\/a> said there was something different about this portion of his work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere is a light about the project Just As I Am that I never experienced before with any of my work,\u201d he said. As part of 7 Billion Ones, Bacon has photographed many different people, which, for him, is a very in-depth process that involves getting to know something and tapping into their stories. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cEverybody has a story,\u201d he said. \u201cPeople kind of throw that word around, but for me it is more about part of the essence of that human and then compiling it and combining it with the authentic portrait of an individual, there\u2019s an exponential power to it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From survivors of domestic abuse to suicide and cancer survivors, Bacon said he\u2019s gotten to hear amazing stories from incredibly wise people. But there was something different about this exhibit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBut above them all is pretty much every single person I\u2019ve photographed for Just As I Am,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He said that photographing and talking with the participants caused him to rethink his own misconceptions about people with Down syndrome\u2014especially the common attitude of feeling sorry for people with Down syndrome.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe should feel sorry for ourselves, because they have a clarity about things that I\u2019ve never seen with anybody I\u2019ve ever photographed before,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The exhibit combines large (36×36) portraits with written narratives and videos of each of the seventeen participants telling their own stories.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bacon said the combination of techniques was intentional. \u201cI think there\u2019s a power in motion portraiture and there\u2019s a power in still portraiture,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Allison explained that, while many stories of people with Down syndrome focus on something others did for<\/em> them in a performative, often patronizing way, the stories in Just As I Am center participants\u2019 voices. In that regard, Bacon\u2019s approach to his work meshed well with the goals of the Down Syndrome Guild of Greater Kansas City for the exhibit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bacon said his artistic approach has shifted over the years\u2014away from a perfect-picture approach and toward what he describes as authenticity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThat means if my hair is messed up, my hair is messed up. If my skin is not perfect, my skin is not perfect. If I cry, I cry. If I laugh, I laugh,\u201d he explained. He said that as he\u2019s sought to photography the myriad unique experiences that make up the lives of 7.5 billion people on the planet, he\u2019s returned to the idea that no one should have to be perfect to be seen as a miracle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His approach to this exhibit\u2014along with his other work\u2014focuses on getting people to notice the miracle he said is all there, in every person\u2019s face and story. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI just want to shake people a little bit so they slow down, they study the individual, they look at the individual\u2014there\u2019s almost a magic connection between the photo and the person,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bacon said he entered portraits from Just As I Am into an international portrait competition\u2014a contest he said historically values portraits that focus on more classic, technically \u201cperfect\u201d models of what good portraiture looks like, which is different from his approach.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMost photographers\u2026think more that \u2018I\u2019ve got to create a cool image\u2019 or \u2018I have to make this person beautiful.\u2019 Whereas I want to show how beautiful this person is just as they are,\u201d he explained.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Just As I Am portraits took first place as well as first and second runner up in the contest. Bacon said he believes outcomes like that indicate that we\u2019re starting to shift away from an Instagramable, perfect picture model of what our lives should look like.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI feel a little bit better about humanity, because people are cutting through and coming to a closer connection with what\u2019s important and what\u2019s not,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As the pandemic unfolds, Bacon said he feels we need exhibits like Just As I Am, that remind us to slow down and choose to see people in their complexity and beauty, more than ever\u2014and he said there\u2019s something unique about seeing an exhibit like this in person.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNothing compares to the face to face experience of seeing the actual photographs, reading the actual stories right next to the portrait,\u201d he said. For this exhibit in particular, he said the experience of seeing portraits that are literally larger than life is unique to the physical gallery. The exhibit will run during the month of March 2021, including over World Down Syndrome Day on March 21. You can learn more about the exhibit from the Down Syndrome Guild of Greater Kansas City.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Amy Allison, Vice President of Education and Advocacy for the Down Syndrome Guild of Greater Kansas City, said she often starts a conversation about her work by asking people to identify a person they know who lives with Down syndrome. Many, she said, can\u2019t. Their understanding of Down syndrome instead comes from, perhaps, seeing someone at the grocery store or seeing a video on social media. These types of isolated encounters fail to expose people to the full complexity of Down syndrome and the people who live with it\u2014and Allison said the Just As I Am Gallery, which will be…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[132],"tags":[159,166],"class_list":["post-22430","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-advocacy","tag-artist","tag-exhibition"],"yoast_head":"\nJust As I Am: Exploring Life with Down Syndrome - The Arts Council of Johnson County<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Amy Allison, Vice President of Education and Advocacy for the Down Syndrome Guild of Greater Kansas City, said she often starts a conversation about her\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/artsjoco.org\/acjc\/just-as-i-am-exploring-life-with-down-syndrome\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Just As I Am: Exploring Life with Down Syndrome - 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