A major portion of the course involves the students envisioning the specific ways in which they as artists can interface with the community and practically function in the world, explains Wittenbraker, an expert on the topic of art in community. Wittenbraker is also one of seven Presidential Service Learning Scholars at Grand Valley. GVSU President Arend D. Lubbers appointed one faculty member from each of the university's seven schools and divisions to the group to encourage service-learning projects across the curriculum. Wittenbraker's class project is one of the results.
Throughout the current semester, the class of eight students has been meeting at a vacant storefront in a building at 617 Lyon Street in Grand Rapids. Working with a grant from the Dorothy Johnson Center for Philanthropy and Nonprofit Leadership at GVSU, the students renovated the space as a gallery. They also interacted with the community by hosting three art lectures. The culmination of the class, called the Civic Studio project, will be an exhibition of their own art, scheduled for December 2-17. The exhibition is titled Those Things.
The exhibition aims to interact with the surrounding area, and to open questions about the meaning of things in and out of the context of art, Wittenbraker explains. The exhibition utilizes things found in the surrounding area as well as things contributed by residents from the area around the Civic Studio space on Lyon Street. The studio process has included preliminary drawings, map making, historical research, and documentation of other observations of the physical and cultural environment.
Those Things will open on Thursday, December 2 at the Civic Studio project at 617 Lyon Street NE in Grand Rapids. The public is invited to the opening reception from 6-8 p.m. on the 2nd, as well as the closing discussion on December 17th from 2-4 p.m. Gallery hours are 2-6 p.m. on Fridays and Saturdays.
