Light On Your Feet: Closing

(An en"light"ening dance choreographed by the chair of the fine arts department, Sheri Leigh O'Connor)

This past Thursday night the closing for the Light On Your Feet exhibition was held in the gallery. The space was full of lots of people, movement, break dancing, t-shirt selling, rapping, and many other activities one wouldn't expect to find in such a place.

(Shadow drawings by Jessica Hayworth)

While attending the opening Kasey and I had the opportunity to interview some students who had participated in creating artwork in the space, or who had collaborated with other students. Jessica Hayworth, who is currently working on her own BFA show, commented on how interesting it was to work in the gallery prior to her own installation. She said how "freeing" this experience was and enjoyed exploring other mediums. She's collaborated before, but never needed the involvement of participants to create the work – for instance, she traced the shadows of other students on the walls.

After spending time in the gallery we migrated into the lecture hall to hear Autumn Beck, the curator of the show, speak and recap on the happenings of the past month.

She described how exploration, synergy, and play in the gallery was vital to the success and concept behind the show.

She set the stage for interactive works, inviting others to join, and left the rest up to the students, visitors, and faculty here to participate while she was gone.

We worked well as a collaborative group, tapped into our friend base and faced challenges and created new ideas about how to activate the gallery space.

Light On Your Feet

Playing dress up, singing karaoke, getting a tattoo: it is all possible in the gallery. From January 18^th- February 9^th Sierra Nevada College is hosting an exhibition entitled Light On Your Feet: A Study in Play, Participation, and Collaboration. The show is a month long exploration of improvisation, performance, movement, and synergy in which everyone is invited to come in and use the space. Curated by Autumn Beck, the show includes artwork and inspiration from: Jahan Khajavipour, SCTV, Eve Fowler, Book Club, Jason Gomez, Justin Vivian Bond, Christine Finley, Dawn Kasper and Jason Akira Somma.

For part of the exhibition Autumn brought in Austin Young and Chloë Flores to give a talk in the gallery on the afternoon of Tuesday, January 31^st.

Austin, a fine art photographer and film maker based out of LA, spoke about a show of his entitled Your Face Here that was held at LA’s Pop tART Gallery. People were able to purchase a space on the gallery wall in which a photograph of them would be placed. Austin was present at the gallery during their hours of operation for portrait sittings and at the reception there were make-up artists and hairdressers styling people for the photograph Austin would be taking. For a look at Austin’s work and the Your Face Here show click HERE

As for Chloë, she is an art curator and is currently doing a project in which a Facebook page has been created as an art space and curatorial project where artists are invited to take a residency on her page and to be her, impersonate her, and update her social networking life. Ironically enough, Austin is currently the resident to the page. As stated on Chloe’s Facebook,

“Chloë Flores effectively explores how an existing public platform embedded with it’s own system for individual representation and identity can be used as an art space and for cultural production. Chloë Flores has not been conceived as a place for the display, presentation and exhibition of artworks per se, but rather as an alternative public space for cultural production, critical gestures, artistic practice, discourse, and exchange; and by extension of being situated within the structure of Facebook, Chloë Flores provides a place for the exploration of collective authorship in place-making, the notions surrounding identity as it relates to social networking, and the performative gestures engendered in self-representation.”

For a look at the page yourself click HERE

The closing will be held on Thursday, February 9^th at 5:00pm on the 3^rd floor of the Prim Library in the Tahoe Gallery. We hope to see you there!

For the Light On Your Feet Facebook event page click HERE

To check-out photos and happenings and become a member of the Light On Your Feet Facebook group click HERE