Williamson, Marisa / Art

Interdisciplinary Arts: Embodying the Archive

This proposal expands on the concept of a new class that we, as students and professor, are collaboratively building this fall semester of 2022: Interdisciplinary Arts: Embodying the Archive.

This Mead will bring together students across disciplines to challenge their definitions of art, which is commonly believed to be limited to pencils, paper, paint, and canvas. Throughout the project, students in the course will create an interdisciplinary archive of conversations that transpire around a dinner table, culminating in the opportunity to exhibit this work in the Ruffin Gallery (or elsewhere) following completion of the semester. The manner of “conversation as pedagogy” (inspired by Stuart Hall and bell hooks’ 2018 contemplative dialogue) will introduce students to contemporary and classical drivers of social change, artists, writers, and philosophers, as well as invite students to critically engage with their ideas by integrating them with student’s lived experiences.

This proposal aims to create an environment where students within and outside of traditional art courses are able to contribute to the development of a work of art, embracing the word “interdisciplinary” to describe the work itself and those that contributed to it. Following the series of three to five dinners, students in the course will compile a photographic and digital exhibition in which photographs and excerpts of conversation transcripts will be paired with text that includes reflection about and meta-commentary of the conversations. Beyond this, we will create a digital space in which viewers are invited to “eavesdrop” by listening to sound bites of these conversations, pulling them into the intimate space of a dinner as a third-party observer and allowing private conversation to be exhibited in a public space.

The idea of an archive as something lived, performed daily, and sustained by a community over time is central to this project. The class is designed to be built upon by future students and adapted for changing times, interests, and urgencies. The class uses what Donna Haraway calls, ‘situated knowledge’ to generate theoretical knowledge. “Situated knowledges are about communities,” Haraway writes, “not about isolated individuals. The only way to find a larger vision is to be somewhere in particular.” These Mead meals are site-specific. They are located at a ‘particular somewhere’ on Grounds or in Charlottesville. They could happen at the Kitty Foster House monument, at the site of the Anatomical Theater, or at the Omni Hotel. What dynamic views can be seen from these hallowed spaces will help guide the conversation. The guest list will be curated based on the site and interests of participating students and may include notable alumni, community members, faculty, staff, other students, and family. We aim to create robust curricular and creative context for sitting around a table, breaking bread, remembering and reflecting on the past, and sharing visions for the future.

Professor Marisa Williamson / Students Justin Wheelock and Rian Gonzalez

Mead grant funding will cover the costs of food for this experiential model of learning as well as the costs of exhibiting this work at the end of the semester in Ruffin Gallery or elsewhere. The work pulls from artist Carrie Mae Weems’ influential Kitchen Table Series and the related idea of domestic space as the birthplace of social change. In that spirit, this Mead will collapse the classroom, historic landscape, kitchen table, and gallery space in order to satisfy an appetite for connection, common ground, and new knowledge.

Budget

Meals ~12 people 5x /semester

$1,500.00

travel / stipends for guests

$500.00

Special space equipment rental / reservation

$500.00

Exhibition materials

$1,000.00