Occupancies explores how individual and collective bodies create, negotiate, and inhabit space. Conceived as a response to the current political climate and to forms of personal resistance against systemic injustices, Occupancies assembles emerging and mid-career artists who use or intimate the physical body as a politicized site to forefront ideas of agency and visibility. While the exhibitions aims do not fit resolutely within the couplet of art and activism, Occupancies engages with the political and historical dimensions of the term “occupy” today. As part of Occupancies, three of the participating artists – eBAY, Intelligent Mischief, and Nabeela Vega – will serve as “Resident Occupants” and occupy the gallery space through ongoing projects, performances, and interventions during the run of the exhibition. Supported, in part, by an Arts Grant from the BU Arts Initiative – Office of the Provost. Occupancies artists are Indira Allegra, eBAY, Andrea Bowers, Jonathan Calm, Jordan Casteel, Edie Fake, Nona Faustine, Marlon Forrester, Chitra Ganesh, Jonah Groeneboer, Ramiro Gomez, Dell M. Hamilton, Ann Hirsch, Intelligent Mischief (Aisha Shillingford and Terry Marshall), Ellen Lesperance, Tony Lewis, Museum of Transgender Hirstory and Art courtesy of the artist Chris E. Vargas, L.J. Roberts, Kameelah Janan Rasheed, Shen Wei, and Nabeela Vega. Curated by Lynne Cooney, Artistic Director, Boston University Art Galleries and Kimber Chewning, Exhibition Assistant Curator and MA Candidate, Department of History of Art and Architecture, Boston University