Art in Odd Places 2018: MATTER Charlottesville
The mission of Art in Odd Places (AiOP) is to engage and activate the everyday places in our lives. In creative, unexpected, and sometimes unusual ways we claim our shared rights to public spaces, while also making sure to question, subvert, and occasionally shake-up the socio-political status quo that regulates it. The sites may look empty, vacant or just plain ordinary, yet they hold the extraordinary possibility for us to collectively imagine change or perhaps even change the ways in which we imagine. Regardless of our economic status, our race, our gender, our persuasion, or our viewpoints — civic space is all ours.
Thanks to the generous invitation from the UVA Studio Arts Board, I first came to Charlottesville in early 2017 thinking I was good to go — ready to implement the tried and true design that I have used to replicate AiOP throughout the world. During my numerous subsequent visits here since then, I’ve been fortunate enough to meet a wide variety of residents, community leaders, artists, students, and change makers. In this slow, and hopefully mindful process of exploring the local neighborhoods, meeting and getting to know the individuals and communities here, I’ve heard volumes of oral histories, memories, tales, and aspirations. Above all, I have learned how to be a more dedicated, active listener.
It occurred to me that the traditional blueprint of AiOP needed to be redrawn to incorporate not only “the right here and the right now” but also “the way-over-there and the back-in-the-day.” Art in Odd Places 2018: MATTER Charlottesville became an opportunity to expand the timeline of “now” to include the “then” markers: all the innovative, relevant and creative work that had already been a part of the community long before and leading up to this encounter with AiOP — and that will continue long after we have left.
We often imagine change as happening instantaneously: a turning point, a sudden realization or inspiration. Change suggests the “new” and “improved”. But Charlottesville offers an opportunity to change the way we imagine. Some social innovations and transformations begin in the past but then take lifetimes and generations of pioneers to achieve sustainability and achieve their full potential in the now. The same holds true for the opposite. Structural racism was not suddenly invented but built up over centuries through acts of bias and violence — and the more gradual effects of inequity and community deterioration.
Through this lens, Art in Odd Places 2018 could easily be seen as Art in Odd Places and Times 2018. Time is more important now than ever before. Time to be fully present and aware of not only what needs to be done but what was (and wasn’t) done before. Time that is long overdue in collectively confronting the massive social and economic inequalities and injustices caused by racism, sexism, ageism, genderism, homophobia, transphobia, islamophobia, and xenophobia.
These issues extend far beyond the borders of this community, of course reaching across the globe. For this reason, it is significant that we are working together here as the world watches and we watch the world. We must mark and record this moment in time and space as a model of long-term, sustainable social growth, community building, and equity. We must also recognize and practice the importance of looking for the unexpected moments in time, no matter how brief or small, that are opportunities to move forward and activate community building and social progress.
Art is at the crossroads of inquiry and understanding, forming the foundation to build a more perceptive and tolerant society. It offers radical opportunities to change the way we see the world, incorporating both the broad view of social challenges inherent in our cultural history, race, class, sexuality, and gentrification as well as the blink-of-an-eye shifting backstories occurring regularly on that same street corner we walk by every day, twice a day, for years. It’s the place and time to reframe and re-familiarize ourselves with our intertwined individual and collective stories, our surroundings, our patterns and our lives. Together, here and now which, for AiOP and Charlottesville, are all oddly ours.
Ed Woodham
April, 2018
Tremendous thanks to the leadership of Megan Marlatt and for suggesting me as the UVA 2017–18 Studio Arts Board lead artist; to faculty advisors: Bill Bennett, George Sampson, and James Silay for their commitment and direction; to Yuchen Xie and the entire Studio Arts Board for their teamwork, dedication and expertise; to Cara Courage for the C’Ville introductions; to all of the Charlottesville community leaders who took time to meet with me; to Vice-Provost of the Arts, Jody Kielbasa and Emma Terry for their support; to Laura Mellusi for her guidance; to the MATTER artists who realized their projects and also to the ones who were unable; to the Charlottesville residents who graciously shared their stories; to Christine Licata, Michael Kilburn, and Sheryl Oring for their keen edits; and to the enduring power of art to create change and inspire hope.