(TUSCALOOSA, Ala.) – Artists and UA art professors Allison Grant and Holland Hopson will collaborate with artist Karen Brummund in a one-night outdoor, immersive and participatory art installation, “Tracing Thin Air,” December 2, 2022, from 7:00 – 9:00 p.m., on 22nd Avenue in downtown Tuscaloosa, in the space between Alcove and Monarch Espresso Bar. Grant, Hopson and Brummund will present an outdoor video projection and sound installation that examines air as a framework for the artists’ personal and social existence. “It is what we breathe, move through, form community within, and a site of invisible environmental concern,” said the artists in their narrative.
In collaborating with each other, the artists create conversations that focus on issues such as impactful spaces in our neighborhood that go unnoticed, the porous borders of our personal spaces that both delineate that space and connect to a surrounding city, and air quality and the overall influence of what we cannot see in our environment.
The installation builds on an exhibition that they presented at the Dinah Washington Cultural Arts Center in November.
As in the November exhibition, Brummund, Grant and Hopson present individually and collaboratively made artworks that visualize the air near their homes in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, and consider how it is inhabited by their community. Using hand-applied and digital mark making, video, sound, drawings by community members and other participatory elements, the artworks activate and reimagine a community’s shared space and the air in between.
For artist bios and an in-depth summary of each artist’s contribution toward “Tracing Thin Air,” go to this page. Visit the artists’ websites at karenbrummund.com, allisongrant.com and hollandhopson.com.
This project is supported in part by a grant from the Verdant Fund.
For more information about The University of Alabama’s programs in art history and studio art, visit our Degree Programs page.