Description
OPENING EVENT: Friday, June 10 | 5 – 9 PM “The artwork must respond to the site or community. The artwork must involve or engage others. The artwork must employ a strategy of decor.” — Julia Vogl These self-determined guidelines frame the project-based work of Julia Vogl, who works within communities to construct social structures and large-scale installations. The visual results vary by the communities that she works in, and are informed by the diverse socio-political circumstances that define them and their residents. Each project begins with assessment and discussion, which then evolves into designed participatory art-making experiences, resulting in a cumulative visualization constructed of individual voices and narratives. Vogl’s interactive installations utilize visual elements such as color and texture to illustrate salient contemporary issues, considerations, and opinions. In collaboration with The Delaware Contemporary and the Delaware Children’s Museum, Vogl developed two installation-based projects, and one ongoing outdoor activity that connects the two museum locations. All of these projects examine various concepts and potential barriers to play local to the New Castle County area. During the conceptual development of the three projects, Vogl worked with museum staff to identify specific lines of inquiry for willing participants to respond to. These discussions were distilled into a specific question that contained multiple choice answers for participants to choose from. In one project, participants can throw a paint-filled balloon at the gallery wall as an interactive way to answer, while the other project asked community groups to decorate suspended piñatas a certain color based on their answer. The initial provocation and inquiry anchors the eventual visualization of answers, creating an ongoing engagement that will evolve and reveal individual opinions. Vogl’s socially-based practice approaches community engagement from a comprehensive standpoint, creating a visually engaging product that resonates clearly with the initial inception. Her thoughtful process enables not only participants, but fellow collaborators the opportunity to reflect and respond in an authentically creative way, empowering the individual to share and contribute.