Ushering in the ICA at MECA’s 2016 spring exhibition, “Tinderbox” merges brutally insightful visual art, contextual information nodes for public engagement, as well as an “art punk” concert. Curated by Kyle Patnaude, its premise is to look at the new role of artists and communities in establishing a dialogue towards political, cultural, and social parameters of confrontation transpiring across the country. The exhibition focuses on areas of tension in which art and artists can become a catalyst and through their creative activism, respond further than conventional art allows. Given countless points of conjecture, this exhibition establishes a self-reflexive space in which discussion through context can begin.

Image: Trina May Smith, “Fire 3”, 2014