The Campus Chronicle

Volume 3, No. 15
February 28, 2003

“ARI case #7111224” by graduate painting students Michael Scoggins, Aaron Bernard, Brett Callero and Kevin Palme is on display at Aquaspace through March 8.

Make space for ‘Flow’

A Review
By Hannah Pittard

The frequency with which Aquaspace, a not-for-profit art space, opens its doors to the public is just erratic enough to keep the gallery and its exhibitions in high demand. Though the space of this gallery alone is worth a visit (with its red brick walls and an unintentionally hidden entrance on West York Lane), the exhibitions housed therein almost always are extraordinary and unique.

“Water may have the dense impenetrability of ice, the buoyancy of a liquid or the elusive quality of steam. Likewise the work typically exhibited at Aquaspace is conceptually and formally challenging, capricious and ephemeral,” wrote Savannah College of Art and Design foundation studies professor Avantika Bawa, also Aquaspace’s curator, in the press release for “Flow, a juried group show of collaborative work.

According to Bawa, “‘Flow’ is interested in exploring the infinite possibilities of collaborative efforts by tapping in on projects that result from the crossing over of disciplines, as well as the differences in aesthetic of two or more artists. Of special interest are the works that are born by combining technology with tradition, hence challenging the digital divide.”

The exhibition consists of a dozen joint installations or collaborations and one live multimedia performance, including work by both SCAD and non-SCAD artists. Among the participants of “Flow” are SCAD professors Elizabeth Darlington and Jonathon Field. Darlington, a New Zealand-born photographer, and Field, a British artist and art historian, combined efforts and practices to create “Diary,” which addresses the aspect of “object-hood” frequently overlooked in digital art. According to Darlington and Field, this work explores the photograph as “object” rather than as “document,” and engages with photography in much the same manner as Kandinsky engages with painting.

SCAD film professor Michael Chaney teamed with local artist and manager of Starland galleries Marcus Kenney to create a series of projections shot and presented as “photographs” on 16 mm film. Using images of landscape, portraiture and still life, the two play with the idea of continuous and intermittent motion.

Current SCAD students Sara Padgett, Roberto Lange and Jay Wynne joined forces with alumnus Adam Heathcott in order to transform the gallery space into an instrument for audio construction. According to the artists, the viewer becomes a performer as interactive surfaces trigger the flow of data through a system of fabricated instrumentation directly manipulated by the present-but-concealed artists.

Other collaborators include, but are not limited to, Fulbright recipient and M.F.A. candidate Rana Bishara, professors Alan Schechner, Craig Drennen, Alessandro Imperato, Becky Wible, alumnus Bob Clagett and SCAD graduate painting majors Michael Scoggins and Magen Peigelbeck.

The reception, scheduled for March 1, 6-9 p.m., features “The Water’s Way,” a multimedia performance by Wible, Johnson, Schechner and Imperato. According to Bawa, “The Water’s Way” is “an experimental video, sound and word collage, drawing from over 400 years of historic material about the Savannah River.”

“Flow” is on display March 1-8, noon to 8 p.m., at Aquaspace, 11 W. York Lane.

View work from a distance
Those outside Savannah can still take advantage of SCAD’s galleries thanks to the online exhibitions Web site at http://www.scad.edu/exhibitions/. Though each of the online galleries, including the Sequential Art Holiday Show, Scholarship Winners, Silverworks, May Poetter Gallery, Salon Satellite in Milan, Illustrious 2001 and Marine Design Project, offers something unique, the Red Gallery is perhaps the most comprehensive and representative of the quality and variety of work elicited by SCAD’s prestige and reputation.

The Red Gallery’s current exhibition, “Red on Red,” features work by alumni, professors and established artists that is centered around the color for which the gallery is named. Artists such as Ayako Mikami, Marcus Kenney, Michael Goesele and Robert Herman are included in the exhibition, which can be viewed at www.theredgallery.com.

Also worth a glance while online is the work presented in the Senior Showcase, a juried exhibition of some of the college’s finest undergraduate student work. The 2002 showcase includes industrial design alumnus Justin Coble’s “Egg Timer” made of ren and “ergonomically designed to be used in a contemporary kitchen,” as well as architecture alumni Ashley Hefner and Cory Herrala’s suggested mixed-media model of the Jacksonville Public Library, whose “angled walls direct visitors both inside and out, physically and visually.”

To view the winning selections from last year’s juried showcase, visit http://www.scad.edu/seniorshowcase/framelow.htm.