Washington University Libraries Portfolio Acquisition
Portfolio to be exhibited at Bruno David Gallery
Exhibition Opening, Saturday, June 24th, 2017, 6:00-8:00 PM
Curating Teen Voices: Coming of Age has been acquired by the Washington University Libraries Department of Special Collections. The project is a time capsule of teenage voices combined with adult artists living in St. Louis in 2015, all reacting to a critical and unique time in the history of race relations, gun violence, police roles and community relationships in the city of St. Louis, Missouri. Saint Louis Story Stitchers Artists Collective is a nonprofit organization where artists and urban youth collect stories, reframe and retell them through art to promote understanding, civic pride, and literacy. The project eloquently puts a megaphone to unheard voices, generating new respect for minority youth and brushing implicit biases away.
The portfolio may be viewed by request at Washington University in St. Louis Libraries’ Department of Special Collection.
Curating Teen Voices: Coming of Age will be exhibited at Bruno David Gallery,7513 Forsyth Blvd, Clayton, MO 63105, in a group exhibition OVERVIEW_2017 this summer, June 24-August 12th. Adult artists represented include Heather Bennett, Michael Byron, Carmon Colangelo, Addoley Dzegede, Ann Hamilton, Kahlil Irving, and Buzz Spector. Proceeds benefit the ongoing work of the Saint Louis Story Stitchers Artists Collective.
The project contains an edition of 10 portfolios, each containing 30 archival digital prints. Each portfolio is housed in a handcrafted archival box created by Saint Louis Story Stitchers artist-in-residence Mariana Parisca, BFA’15. Mariana Parisca, received a Bachelor of Fine Arts in studio art with a double major in Anthropology from Washington University in St. Louis in 2015. Parisca joined the Saint Louis Story Stitchers after graduation in 2015 as an artist in residence. Mariana spent the first eight years of her life in Caracas, Venezuela, her family’s home. In 2000 Parisca and her nuclear family immigrated to suburban Ohio. Parisca’s immigration experience as well as the diaspora of her family landscape incite an interest in sense of self and place that she explores through her work.
Support: Financial assistance for this project has been provided by the Missouri Arts Council, a state agency. This project is supported in part by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts. The Saint Louis Story Stitchers Artists Collective is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization that brings teens and artists together in documenting our community through art, word, video, and music.
Curating Teen Voices: Coming of Age is based on the Youth Art and Writing Contest, 2015 and Curating Teen Voices Workshop Series which were supported in part by the Kranzberg Arts Center, Yvette and John Dubinsky Family Foundation, Susan Sanders Block and The Designing Block, Washington University in St. Louis, and the Regional Arts Commission.
Special thanks to the youth, the contributing artists, Bruno David Gallery, and Washington University in St. Louis.
