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One year after the 99 percent’s descent on New York’s Zuccotti Park, artists and curators across the country have begun a series of first attempts at placing the sprawling, unruly protest movement in history. In Washington, where we boasted not one but two competing Occupy factions, “Occupy This!” draws mainly from the nonprofit photography collective Facing Change: Documenting America, which chronicled the Occupy movement as it blanketed public parks from one end of the country to the other. To bring context to the images, curator Allison Nordstrom locates Occupy on a historical timeline, examining the history of American protest movements and how they interact with the nation’s capitol. By examining the protest movement critically, “Occupy This!” promises to at least partially answer the question that still too many people ask about the movement: “So, what was that all about?”
“Occupy This” is on view 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Mondays–Fridays Sept. 1 to Oct. 21 at the American University Museum at the Katzen Arts Center, 4400 Massachusetts Ave. NW. Free. american.edu/cas/katzen. (202) 885-1000.