The Lima City Schools is proud to partner with Art/Space Lima to bring a unique, thought provoking exhibit to the downtown Lima gallery.
Artspace/Lima is hosting a digital exhibit, which began from a project done by Arts Magnet teacher Mike Huffman and his eighth-graders in the 2009-10 school year.
The students, who are now seniors, did a “Racism, Prejudice, Tolerance, Acceptance ” project that involved interviewing and videotaping community members about their experiences with racism, sexism and other prejudices. From the conversations, students created a series of short reader’s theater-style plays and commercial poster images. Those posters were chosen to be on display at the Riffe Center in Columbus.
A year later, a group of adults from the community pushed the project further. They interviewed the students, original community members involved in the project and others in the community.
Huffman said the student project was designed to address the issues facing people all over the country and world, and to allow students the latitude to affect social and political change in their community through art.
“After that intimal year of study, the project became organic in nature and evolved into its current state, a multimedia installation,” he said. “What it has retained from its earlier form is the learning community/collaborative approach to making art that aims to provoke an increased level of discourse around these often hard to deal with, divisive issues. It is a true hybrid of visual art and community education.”
The project will continue to grow this school year with staff professional development and student learning.
The show at Artspace/Lima will include large scale video projections of the various interviews and the original student artwork. The show will run until Dec. 21.
Lima Senior graduate Terran Washington, a Kent State University graduate and graphic designer with Little Jacket Design in Cleveland, is doing the graphics, including a booklet, for the show.
This is a unique project for the school district and Artspace/Lima. It is designed to use art to get people talking about these issues, much like the Common Threads initiative.
The first phase received funding from the Martha Holden Jennings Foundation and the second phase from the Martha S. MacDonell Foundation for the Arts. The project is also made possible by Longmeier Printing and Rhodes State College.