New Collaborative George Waters Gallery Exhibit Opens Oct. 21
Elmira, NY (10/20/2021) — A new, collaborative collage exhibition will begin at the George Waters Gallery on Thursday, Oct. 21. The second exhibition of the Fall 2021 season, "Postal Collage Project #10," features 65 of the more than 120 collages created collaboratively by people throughout the world in 2020 and 2021. The exhibition will be on view from noon - 4 p.m. on weekdays until January 13, 2022.
A "sister show" exhibiting the other half of the project will be exhibited simultaneously at the Shuman Block Gallery in Berkeley, California.
The idea behind the exhibit is to get strangers working together to create art. Often, the participants do not know the people they are collaborating with. A person initiates the collage and then sends the partially completed piece to someone else through the mail. The next person, who could be from across the globe, contributes to the piece before sending it on to someone else. This work was done throughout the pandemic and the project was initially completed and exhibited at the Berkeley Art Center as part of the Berkeley Commonplace Launch Party last August. You can learn more about the Roundtable Collaboration Postal Collage projects and Berkeley Commonplace on their respective website pages.
Included in the George Waters Gallery exhibit are video animations documenting the process of project coordinator Marty McCutcheon opening the postal packages when the final collages arrived at the Berkeley studio.
Taking inspiration from the Berkeley Commonplace mission to make creative activity "commonplace" in everyone's life, the George Waters Gallery exhibit includes an opportunity for gallery visitors to contribute to two large-scale collages. Elmira College students Max Lundin '22, Jenna Cowder '22, and Haley Halse '22 prepared the community collage surface substrate and put a letter "C" on it, which stands for "commonplace," "collage," "community," "creativity," "college" and "collaboration." Additionally, members of the Art Club cut magazine images for gallery visitors to use if they choose to participate in the collaborative collage activity.
A series of events related to the exhibition will be announced over the next few weeks. All visitors are encouraged to wear masks and observe social distancing. The gallery is closed during Thanksgiving and December Holiday breaks.
About Elmira College
Founded in 1855, Elmira College is a private, residential, liberal arts college offering 25-plus majors, an honors program, 17 academic societies, and 18 Division III varsity teams. Located in the Southern Finger Lakes Region of New York, Elmira's undergraduate and graduate student population hails from more than 20 states and nine countries. Elmira is a Phi Beta Kappa College and has been ranked a top college, nationally, for student internships. The College is also home to the Center for Mark Twain Studies, one of four historically significant Twain heritage sites in the U.S., which attracts Twain scholars and educators from around the world for research on the famous literary icon. Proud of its history and tradition, the College is committed to the ideals of community service, and intellectual and individual growth.
Media Attachments
Art majors Max Lundin'22, Jenna Cowder'22 and Alex Taylor'23 are in charge of installing the show. They are pictured here just as they begin to arrange the exhibit.
The second exhibition of the Fall 2021 season, “Postal Collage Project #10,” features 65 of the more than 120 collages created collaboratively by people throughout the world in 2020 and 2021. The exhibition will be on view from noon - 4 p.m. on weekdays until January 13, 2022.
Max Lundin ’22, Jenna Cowder ’22, and Haley Halse ’22 prepared the community collage surface substrate pictured here by tracing the letter “C” which will be the basis for the interactive experience.
