This is the third annual exhibition in which artists are invited to curate a show of their own work, integrated with pieces they’ve selected from the University Gallery’s works-on paper collection which includes over 2600 contemporary prints, drawings, and photographs. The project offers the rare opportunity to showcase artworks owned by UMass, and a platform for outstanding local artists to present their work.

This year’s exhibition features the work of an artist’s “collective”—Northampton artists Ali Osborn, Raphy Griswold, and Teddy O’Connor—who will position their work alongside works they select from the permanent collection and place them in direct dialogue with one another. In addition to working directly with physical objects, the three artists have created an exhibition that is in itself a work of art. I’am a dream explores the act of curating and collaborating, generating conversation and juxtaposition among disparate objects.

Ali, Raphy, and Teddy plumbed the depths of the University Gallery’s permanent collection, unearthing works by dozens of artists—including Andy Warhol, Joseph Cornell, Cole Weston, Eve Sonneman, Sandy Skoglund, Stephen Antonakas, and Nam June Paik—several of whom have rarely or never been exhibited at the University Gallery.

Ali Osborn, Raphy Griswold, and Teddy O’Connor are emerging artists who burst onto the local art scene in 2007 with their exuberant works—prints, drawings, mixed media installations, video, books—that have been seen in exhibitions at A.P.E. Gallery, wünderarts, and other galleries in the region. For these three artists, banding together not only entails artistic collaboration, but also helps address a broad range of practical concerns, including access to materials, living and work space, exhibition opportunities and funding.