Tonight begins the opening of Figure One’s newest exhibit, Opening for Social Habitat: The Porch Project. The exhibit is created by artist Heather Hart. From their Facebook event:
Rooted in the principles of relational aesthetics, Social Habitat will entirely transform Figure One’s main gallery space into an experiential and experimental environment that invites passersby, students, community members and more to engage with each other, the space itself and various activities unfolding within it.
Artist Heather Hart, in concert with the resources available to the School of Art+ Design within the College of Fine and Applied Arts, will convert Figure One’s main galleries into a space that mimics the spatial dynamics of a residential porch that also serves as a springboard for interdisciplinary learning and engagement. Hart’s use of a porch-like structure serves as a metaphor for a safety zone—a space for communication, open identities, and as a site for self-empowerment and reclamation. Hart desires to present and bear witness to the shifting identities the porch will inhabit as different programming unfolds within, around, below and above its surfaces.
Social Habitat will be a place where segments of community are formed and defined, a place where people congregate to socialize, voice their ideas and concerns or listen to tales long forgotten. More importantly, utilizing a common domestic architectural form, a porch, this exhibition serves as a communal bridge between the University and outlying communities. By asking each participant to engage with the space, which varies depending on the program or area of the structure in which one is situated, Social Habitat encourages an experience of reflection about an individual’s frame of reference and how it inform one’s notions of physical, spatial and psychological identity.
The gallery will be opened from 5 to 8 p.m.