Mobile-based art center reaches out with ‘Postcards from Quarantine’
Seniors are isolated in nursing homes no one can visit. Artists have been deprived of exhibitions, arts & crafts fairs and other sources of revenue. The head of the Alabama Contemporary Art Center hopes its "Postcards from Quarantine" project can help both.
Phase One of the project is a call for submissions from artists in Mobile and Baldwin counties. Artists are asked to submit original work under the theme "We're all in this together." All submissions will be featured in a public "virtual gallery" at www.alabamacontemporary.org. The creators of 10 winning entries each will receive $150 and a 10-pack of postcards featuring their designs.
In Phase Two, volunteers will write postcards "to the community's most vulnerable residents: individuals quarantined in nursing homes, homeless shelters, half-way houses" and similar institutions. Each volunteer pen pal will receive a list of 10 recipients (first names only) and 10 prepaid postcards featuring winning designs.
elizabet elliott, executive director and curator at ACAC, said "Postcards from Quarantine" is a first attempt to respond creatively to a shutdown that has forced arts institutions to close their doors to patrons and left many artists keen to replace lost revenue.
"I didn't want to see us sit on our hands and wait," she said. "I do believe we can have a positive impact and we have a mandate to meet the community where they are."
She's fully aware that the scope of the project makes it a drop in the bucket compared to the need.
"It's a small commission," she said of the money for winners. "It's so small, it's not going to replace a fair, or what you might have sold at an exhibition opening."
Yet for ACAC, it represents a willful effort to redirect money, including funding for a canceled exhibition, at a time when it and other arts organizations are grappling with problems of their own. The reality for them is that the current shutdown and the recession likely to follow it may well devastate their projected budgets.
Her hope is that the project will become self-sustaining and maybe even inspire other organizations to mount similar campaigns. ACAC plans to fund and organize the dissemination of 750 postcards. It also will make packages of postcards available for order through its website for $25, starting April 12, "to anyone who would like to distribute them on their own." That could help fund another round of the contest.
elliott said that ACAC staff will select the 10 winners, with an eye to reflecting the stylistic diversity of the entries. She's gotten inquiries from artists outside the area but said she has made clear that the winners will come from Mobile and Baldwin counties.
"We're really trying to make sure the benefit is local," she said.
The deadline for submissions is midnight on April 6, and full submission criteria can be found at alabamacontemporary.org/events/pfq/.
Komentar
Posting Komentar