Monday, November 20, 2006
"Utopiana" dreams: Students and faculty collaborate with artist
Mary Beth Edelson
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Internationally renowned artist and feminist activist Mary Beth Edelson is working with USI students, faculty, and New Harmony residents on a collaborative art project called "Utopiana." Edelson was artist in residence at the New Harmony Gallery of Contemporary Art in fall 2006 during the first, “envisioning” phase of the project. She will return in 2007 for the implementation phase. April Vasher-Dean, director of the New Harmony Gallery, invited Katie Waters, professor of art and chair of the Art, Music, and Theatre Department, and Dr. Hilary Braysmith, associate professor of art history, to help plan the project, ensuring that USI students had the opportunity to work with a famous artist on site in New Harmony. USI students Gena Bradley, Brittany Gray, Stacey Gray, Erica Hroblak, Derek McGraw, Sarah Nellis, Janelle Persohn, Phil Schmitt, Katie Watts, and Corinne Wilson are participating in the project, as are USI Art Department alumni Tracy Gholson and Jason Reese and Erika Myers-Bromwell, assistant director at New Harmony Gallery of Contemporary Art, who holds a Master of Arts in Liberal Studies degree from USI. Reese, a graduate student in the MALS program, also is visually documenting the project. Utopiana project members participated in workshops five times a week for a month, with a focus on conceptualizing projects that would answer the question, “What is Utopian in our culture today that we don’t recognize as such?” Edelson introduced a list of “Golden Rules” for communication between participants in the workshops, the first of which was “Be respectful and kind to one another.” In the artist’s view, the Utopian-inspired social interaction is the artwork in and of itself. In this atmosphere, the group selected the following projects for 2007: • Students collaborated with local architect Ben Nicholson to begin designing a public space parallel to Main Street in New Harmony’s McClure Square that could provide Internet access to those enjoying aesthetically rendered tables, seating, an information kiosk, and a community bulletin board. • A designed public picnic area with hummingbird feeders and a walking path in Red Bud Park on Church Street. • Aesthetically interpreted benches painted with historical and contemporary New Harmony quotes, placed in locations around New Harmony, rotated monthly, and eventually auctioned off as a fundraiser for the overall project. Edelson’s artwork is rooted in feminism, political activism, collaboration, and public participation. It has been widely exhibited in the U.S. and abroad, and is in the permanent collection of numerous public institutions including the Museum of Modern Art and the Guggenheim in New York, the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., the Walker Art Center in Minnesota, and the Malmö Konstmuseum in Sweden. |
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