The Coleman Center for the Arts’ (CCA) recently premiered “Flowers for Hope,” a public project by the students of Art Club, starting on Wednesday, May 22, 2013 in the CCA gallery.
This spring, Art Club students explored the relationship between art, social activism and their community. In weekly lessons students learned about contemporary artists working in socially conscious and socially engaged art, and then collaborated with artists and instructors in creative thinking, problem solving, civic action, image making, performance and creative play.
Over the course of the semester students investigated personal and political identity through the work of William Pope.L, wrote truisms based on the work of Jenny Holzer, responded to downtown York after considering Theaster Gates’ transformation of dilapidated structures and premiered their own impromptu Beuysian performance piece.
“Flowers for Hope,” the student’s final project, is the culmination of the semester spent learning about and activating public space and public values. Tasked with informing their own community through creative action, students chose to focus on a series of public planting projects and a story told through food.
Art Club students weeded and planted flowers in Grant Park in downtown Piggly Wiggly. They explored guerrilla gardening through making “seed bombs,” balls of local red clay studded with wildflower seeds, that were thrown around corners, sidewalk cracks, abandoned lots and gullies. To honor the home of Art Club, students planted sunflower seeds, reclaimed from last year’s harvest, at the Coleman Center. And this summer a series of fruit trees will be planted at Sumter Central High School.
To tell the story of their love for and dedication to York, students invited the York Mayor and City Council to share a special meal with them in the CCA gallery. The meal told the story of their actions around town and redefined the student’s relationship with local leadership as active partners.
Students narrated the meal with their own voice:
“We try our best to improve the community through our efforts manipulated by art. Each project we put forth has a purpose, a cause and a projected effect. Over the last several weeks we have planted sunflower seeds, made “seed bombs” and planted flowers downtown. We plan to continue our project by planting fruit trees at Sumter County High School.
“Tonight, our project culminates in the meal we will share with you, our community leaders. This meal tells the story of our project, “Flowers for Hope,” and conveys our message that art and action can shape our world. Using food, creativity and culture, we communicate with you about who we are.”
Flowers picked from the community garden adorned the table, along with handcrafted paper flowers and place mats.
“The flowers that you see all around you represent the sunflowers we planted here at the Coleman Center. Sunflowers grow big and beautiful and that is how we want our community to flourish.
“If you look at the banner on the table, you will see sunflowers and other kinds of flowers. The flowers started as a small seed and grew bigger. The Art Club started off small, and now we get new members every month.
“The Art Club is trying to make York, Alabama a better and safer place to live and visit. It lets us better ourselves and everyone around us. We can make a change in this world one step at a time. It all starts with just one seed.”
Whimsical beverages greeted the Mayor and Council when they arrived.
“For our beverage this evening, we have water with ice cubes featuring mint and lavender that were grown in Sumter County. These herbs represent the wildflowers that we spread around town with our homemade seed bombs.
“We made seed bombs with balls of Alabama red clay, studded with wildflower seeds. We threw the bombs purposefully around different spots in York. Like the perennial flowers we planted, we want to stay deeply rooted in our community.
“We hope you will be refreshed just as our community is by the new wildflowers soon to bloom around town!”
The main course featured 100% locally sourced ingredients.
“We began “Flowers for Hope” by weeding and planting the flower bed in Grant Park in downtown York next to our adored hometown grocery store the Piggly Wiggly. Through beautifying the downtown, we expressed our love for our hometown, just as this dish does.
“All of the ingredients in this dish were purchased in York. 100% of the vegetables were grown in our community garden here at the Coleman Center. We hope you will enjoy, “York Chicken with Spring Vegetables,” and join us in utilizing local resources to keep our community strong.”
The smells of dessert tantalized CCA visitors as it was being prepared!
“This peach cobbler represents the fruit trees that we will plant at the high school. It is sweet like we are, and we want to make something sweet for our community. Enjoy!”
The meal helped to form relationships between city youth and leaders as they affirmed their mutual values of love for the local and dedication to the community.
“Today we have feasted! And today we have hope for flowers! As we have eaten today we hope you have gotten an understanding of our project, our values, and our hopes for us all.
It has been a pleasure serving you and we hope you’ve enjoyed having dinner with us tonight. Thank you for sharing our meal with us!”
A good time was had by all.