This past Friday marked the start of our collaborative project, In Anticipation of Belonging, with community partners from Stockyard Institute, The Odyssey Institute, The Arts + Public Life's Teen Arts Council, and Red Line Service. Participants from all of the collaborating institutions met for a summit to discuss their projects for the next six weeks, and analyze how different works of art handle the question of belonging.
EVOLVING PROJECTS
Artist Jim Duignan presented on the Stockyard Institute’s Smart Radio Station, which will be collecting ‘Audio Vérité,’ an unedited sonic archive of the space, exploring ideas of belonging, asking the questions: Who are you? Where do you come from? Where are you going?
Marya Spont-Lemus and Simone R. from the Teen Arts Council, offered in partnership with After School Matters, described how their student leaders will engage the space to explore issues of race, gender, and identity over a two week intensive residency.
Audrey Petty, Catherine Weidner, and Jared Spitz from The Odyssey Institute described how their three week project—in which students will learn about art handling and registration, photography, art media, library research, and presentation skills—will engage with the humanities, explore the ideas of access and inclusion, and examine the concept of citizenship.
Co-founder of Red Line Service, Rhoda Rosen, proposed a 24 hour festival of enacting belonging that would extend the embrace of the Hyde Park community, involving everyone who would like to participate in lectures, art making, performances, and workshops.
BE A PART OF IN ANTICIPATION OF BELONGING
Come by the Museum and be a part of the conversation!
The Smart Radio, 87.3 FM, is up and running, situated in front of the evolving Input/Output mural painted by local artist and illustrator Nikki Jarecki, which will act as a log of what is being recorded and transmitted in the space. The radio station records sound experiences, music performances, audio waves, talks, found transmissions, sonic experiments and interviews with visitors. Drop by and record your ideas of what it means to belong.
As of right now, most of the wall space in the gallery is blank, but that will soon change. We are covering the walls with our different conceptions of what it means to belong, so come see how the physical space evolves as we fill the blank walls.
This project anticipates Conversations with the Collection: Belonging, a yearlong project that opens August 16 and explores ideas of belonging through objects from across cultures and eras on display throughout the Smart Museum’s collection galleries.
Follow the Smart Museum blog for a weekly look at the conversations, events, and works of art being developed over the course of In Anticipation of Belonging.
