Jenna Rice + ArtLab: Summer 2012

In Residence: June 4 – August 3, 2012Exhibition: opens Thursday, August 2, 2012;continues through August 31Learning Lab: ArtLabDuring Learning Labs with Creative Resident Jenna Avriel Rice, ArtLab youth ventured into assisted-living communities around the Denver metro area. With the help of Bessie’s Hope, an organization that enhances the quality of life for residents of assisted-living facilities by bringing generations together in mutually rewarding relationships, youth formed relationships with elders, used photography skills and storytelling to document their experiences. Jenna led ArtLab youth as each student interviewed, spent time with, and photographed an elder with whom they had been paired. Students acquired their artistic skills during workshops with Creative Resident Jenna Rice and also discovered the barriers of ageism and judgement and learned about the challenges of growing old. ArtLab youth began the project hesitant to enter into the lives of their elderly partners but soon became captivated by their life stories and the continuous discovery of shared similarities between two people decades apart in age. Youth created visual displays that chronicle their experiences with their elders in the form of artist photo books that they bound themselves and installed in a final exhibition alongside Jenna’s body of work (currently showing at PlatteForum). The transformative summer instilled confidence in and enhanced the professional skills of ArtLab youth and also brought a new community to the PlatteForum family. Youth are excited to continue their relationship with their elders into the future.