Open society is an elusive goal, an ideal no nation has reached. All erect barriers: political oppression, economic instability, racism, drug epidemics, and other walls. Yet even as walls are erected, there are people who are committed to bringing them down. As the name of the exhibition implies, Moving Walls is an artistic representation of this struggle.

The Fall 2000 exhibition features six artists whose work examines societies where these walls are being challenged. Chien-Chi Chang gives us a glimpse of the difficult life of Chinese-American immigrants in New York City. John Cohen examines the stratified society in Peru. Jan Dago documents the effects of political and economic change in Indonesia. Vesna Pavlović bears witness to a group of women in Yugoslavia as they rebuild their world after war and ethnic strife. Joseph Rodriguez introduces us to the lives of youthful offenders in the United States. Alex Webb's work is a portrait of Haiti, a nation wracked by dire poverty, a nearly non-existent formal economy, and a crumbling infrastructure.