(TUSCALOOSA, Ala.) – Artists and UA art professors Allison Grant and Holland Hopson will collaborate with artist Karen Brummund for a multi-media public art project, “Tracing Thin Air,” November 4-17, 2022, at the Dinah Washington Cultural Arts Center in Tuscaloosa. The art event, hosted by The Arts Council of Tuscaloosa, will open Friday, November 4, during the First Friday Art Walk from 5:00 to 7:00 p.m. in downtown Tuscaloosa.
Brummund, Grant and Hopson will 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 participatory elements, the artworks activate and reimagine a community’s shared space and the air in between.
In collaborating with each other, the project creates conversations focusing 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.
In December, the artists will present a one-night outdoor video and sound installation that examines air as a framework for 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. The video and sound installation will be mounted in the space between Alcove bar and Monarch coffee shop during First Friday on December 2, 2022, with a rain date of February 3, 2023.
For the complete artists’ statement, go to this page.
This project is supported in part by a grant from the Verdant Fund.
Visit the artists’ websites at karenbrummund.com, allisongrant.com and hollandhopson.com. For artist bios and an in-depth summary of each artist’s contribution toward “Tracing Thin Air,” go to this page.
The Dinah Washington Cultural Arts Center is located at 620 Greensboro Avenue in downtown Tuscaloosa. For more information about The Arts Council or Bama Theatre, patrons should follow and like “The Arts Council – Bama Theatre – Cultural Arts Center” on Facebook and follow us on Instagram @tuscaloosaartscouncil. Call 205-758-5195 or visit tuscarts.org for further information.
For more information about The University of Alabama’s programs in art history and studio art, visit our Degree Programs page.