READING THE PUBLIC SPACE
Winter 2021 Youth Artist Project
Reading the Public Space will be taught by Artist-in-Residence Gabriel Sosa, whose work explores how language shapes and influences our everyday experiences.
Gabriel Sosa, No es fácil/It ain't easy, 2020 - 2021. Photo: Iaritza Menjivar.
Classes: January 12 - March 23, 2021
Virtual Showcase: TBD
Through a series of collaborative workshops, readings, and conversations, students will explore language as a medium for healing. “Reading the Public Space” integrates two main components. First comes a seminar-style series of discussions on the use of language in public art, specifically, a close examination of artists who deeply integrate and language into their artistic practices. Next, students will respond to a series of prompts as a point of departure to create their own work that engages the hopeful and thought-provoking elements in language. In doing so, youth artists will consider how to resourcefully and effectively place this language in the public space so that it may be serendipitously discovered, e.g., a note in a mailbox, a sign on a lamppost, a chalk drawing on the sidewalk, etc.
Check out the Youth Artists’ work!
Virtual Sessions with Youth Artists and Artist in Residence Gabriel Sosa
Equipped with everything we have learned about text in contemporary art so far, how do we look at text in the public space differently?
Visiting Artist Sara Rivera joined youth artists to discuss her practice as well as Orphan Signs, a project she leads in Albuquerque where she works with local youths to repurpose marquees of abandoned businesses as display spaces for poetry and other forms of text-based work.