2 New Schools!

Champions has recently added the Living Histories Photo/Video class to two additional Green Dot high schools: Animo South LA and Animo Pat Brown!! We are all very excited to work with such incredible students! Photos and updates to come...

To view the work of Animo Pat Brown, please visit their own site: Pat Brown Photography!

New School Year at Animo Bunche!

Hi all! The new school year is upon us. The Living Histories Photography Club begins this Monday, August 31, 2010. And we will be adding video to our curriculum! Classes will be held Monday, Wednesday and Friday from 3:30 - 5 pm (or until late bus) in Mr. Hoover's classroom, room 122. Thank you, Mr. Hoover, for letting us use your classroom again this year! Hope to see you all there!

Transference

If you missed the opening reception, there's still time to see this exceptional show of young, emerging artists! The exhibition will be up through July 16, 2010 at the Starbucks in Huntington Park (3060 E Slauson Ave. in the Home Depot shopping center).

The photographs on view at Starbucks are the artwork of high school students who participated in a Living Histories after-school photography class. These young talents are students from the Green Dot charter high schools, Animo Justice and Animo Ralph Bunche. These are young, emerging artists within the community. Thank you, Starbucks, for recognizing and promoting inspired youth!

Below are installation shots of the work on display at Starbucks. To view each individual photograph and read the descriptions of each artist's work, please go to the post titled, "The Artist, the Curator/Gallerist, and the Art Critic."

The title of this group exhibition is Transference. Transference is defined simply as the action of transferring something or the process of being transferred. It is also a term used in psychoanalysis, which can be defined in different ways in relation to the redirection of feelings from one person to another. Carl Jung discusses transference as an experience of opposites. The ability to endure this tension of opposites without abandoning the process allows one to grow and to transform. The subject of much of the work in this exhibition focuses on identity and community. The tension and opposites between the formation of one’s personal identity in relation to one’s community is often felt most acutely in young people. Yet the awareness and the exploration of this seeming tension of opposites eventually allows for growth and transformation within oneself, which then translates into how one interacts with the world and a feeling of deep connection with one’s community begins to flourish. These young artists are using photography as a creative means of communication: transferring their thoughts and feeling onto the viewer through the vehicle of art.

Living Histories is a non-profit organization dedicated to providing educational enrichment programs based in visual and language arts that promote critical thinking and awareness to help young people find their voices as a force for change and service in their communities. For more information about Living Histories, please visit our website: living-histories.us

Living Histories is partnered with Champions. Champions’ commitment is to provide innovative programming in outdoor education, adventure retreats, after school enrichment, and physical education to increase self-confidence, communication skills, teamwork, and community. For more information about Champions, please visit their website: championsusa.com

invitation to the show

Cristian Sierra

Nico

David Palacios

Esmeralda Gonzalez

Andrea Lira

Christopher Aldana

Opening Reception

The opening reception for the Transference group exhibition, featuring artists from Animo Justice and Animo Bunche high schools, was an absolute success! It was a lovely evening of artists, family, friends and colleagues supporting the arts. Thank you Stephanie Torres and Starbucks for hosting this beautiful exhibition of photographic work! Below are highlights of the evening.

Nico in front of her beautiful abstractions

David next to his stylistic compositions

Christopher and his conceptual photographs

Leon, Champions Program Director at Animo Justice, studying Christopher's work

Angelo, Champions Vice President, and his wife looking at Christopher's photographs

Antonio from Champions with his wife admiring Cristian's and Nico's work

David's mom surveying Esmeralda's photographs

Kelly reading about Christopher's work

Noelle reading about Esmeralda's work

David and Nico contemplating David's photographs

Christopher enjoying a Starbucks Frappuccino in front of David's work

Two Living Histories teachers, Steven (left) and Janet (right) talking with the students

The crowd at the opening reception: Janet from Living Histories and Angelo from Champions in the foreground

A lovely gathering of friends supporting emerging artists

A wonderful turnout and an incredible evening!

Installation

One final process of art production is the installation of work for an exhibition. I personally find this final stage of installing my work in a gallery, museum, artist-run-space, or whatever space I can utilize such as a coffee shop (which has great exposure due to high traffic) to be one of the more rewarding steps! It feels incredible to be finally done with a piece and actually install it myself and then to see the final product in front of me as it will be shown to the public.

And the installation of a show is another beast in itself. Where to put the work? How to arrange it? What will go where and in what order? How can I best utilize the space I've been given to bring out the most in my work? What concepts or aesthetics are at play in my work that I can translate into the exhibition space? Will I take into account the institutional aspects of the exhibition space? How will it inform my work? These are only a handful of questions artists ask themselves when thinking about the installation of their work and the space in which they are showing their work.

But for the installation of this particular group show, we focused on the basics. Andrea and Nico, two of the exhibiting artist, installed the entire show. Below are photographs documenting the installation process.

First, we decided to group the photographs by artist. Next, we figured out which group of photos will go on what wall. Then for each wall, we determined the order and placement of each photograph.

Nico (front) chose this wall to display her work because of the location of the wall in relation to the store layout and also because the color of the wall compliments the colors in her photographs.

We hung each photograph so that the center of the photo is at 64". That means we measured 64" up from the floor and subtracted half the height of each photograph and that height is where the bottom of the photograph hits.

The final product: Cristian's photos are the two on the left and Nico's photos are the three on the right.

And here is a more dynamic angle of the installation.

After hanging the first wall, we got into a groove. I measured, Nico leveled to make sure each photograph was hung straight, and Andrea placed each photo.

Final product of Esmeralda's photos

Finding the placement of Christopher's photos

Andrea and Nico installing like pros now

Final product: Christopher's three photos on the left and Andrea's photo on the right

Regarding David's work, I made a curatorial decision to install them like this for two reasons: 1) space limitations (I decided to add a fourth photograph to his already three so that I can compose them like this in order to save space); and 2) the composition works to enhance both the stylistic and conceptual aspects of his photographs.