Global Youth Service Day 2013

PlatteForum’s participation in Global Youth Service Day holds true to their mission of pairing youth with professional artists in order to utilize art as the vehicle for youth development and social action. This experience transforms the lives of the youth, the artists, and the community. “Table Lessons” is a collaborative project between PlatteForum’s high school internship program, ArtLab, and 2010 Biennial of the Americas Creative Resident Tsehai Johnson. Johnson is a local ceramic artist with degrees in fine art from Reed College, Massachusetts College of Art, and the University of Colorado. Johnson’s has exhibited at and is featured in the collections of Foothills Art Center, White Columns, Fort Collins Museum of Contemporary Art, Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art, World Ceramic Biennale, and Museum of Ceramics. She is the recipient of a Colorado Council of the Arts fellowship and has completed creative residencies in Spain and Iceland.

ArtLab youth will work with Johnson for four consecutive weeks, and during the project they will create a survey to gather data about hunger within their communities, transfer that data into the form of graphics and text and then onto ceramic plates, and then showcase their work for the public in an exhibition. “Table Lessons” engages ArtLab youth through awareness, service, and reflection centered on issues of hunger. Hunger Free Colorado will speak with ArtLab youth at the start of the project about hunger within Colorado. The dinner event held on Thursday, April 25, 2013, is open to the public. Youth will present their work and reflection about the service-learning process at a signature event held on Saturday April 27, 2013.