Location, environment and the meaning of home are some of the themes of an exhibition being put together this week at Emporia State University.
Bethany Springer, an assistant professor of art at the University of Arkansas, is in town this week to construct the exhibition that brings together multiple forms, including sculpture and video.
Springer was working Tuesday afternoon to set up the exhibit with the help of ESU assistant art professor Roberta Eichenberg and several students. The group was busy arranging blown down tree limbs and painting the walls to bring the elements of the exhibit together.
The exhibit will be on display at the Norman R. Eppink Gallery in King Hall on the ESU campus beginning until Halloween. On Oct. 30 there will be a closing reception in the Bruder Theater lobby from 5 to 7 p.m.
Entitled “Showcase Showdown,” the multimedia project will include the sculpture and video projects Springer has put together. Taken together, the projects are a statement on the meanings and effects of place.
“Each project, even though most are in a different kind of media, explore the idea of place and territory and belonging,” Springer said. “Basically I’m trying to make an indoor diorama where viewers can participate.”
These themes have interested Springer for a number of years, as she has traveled extensively and taken note of how place — and displacement — informs people’s lives. Originally from the Washington, D.C., area, she has been moving across the country for about 15 years.
“For me, place has become more interesting as I’ve been displaced so much so frequently over the years,” she said. “So I guess I’m trying to understand how place changes an identity, how environment shapes people and how we’re changed by where we are.”
Two video projects are composed of interviews Springer has conducted with people concerning these themes. In her first, called “Flyover Territory,” she spent time interviewing residents of a rehabilitation and nursing center in Memphis. The second, “Homeless Project,” consists of interviews with homeless people about their memories and the meaning of home.
“I found over the years of just listening to people that you can learn a lot about a place that you would never see just by visiting like I had been,” she said, “moving place to place, never becoming part of the community.”
As a subtext of place, the sense of belonging is a theme Springer is interested in exploring as well.
“I think in a broader spectrum I’m kind of trying to analyze how many of us really feel at home or feel like we have a sense of belonging in a place,” she said. “Most of the people I’ve interviewed, like in the homeless project, feel like they have no place to belong to.”
“I hope people will come by just to take a look or listen to the video projects,” Springer said. “It should be a place of reflection and listening, and they might have a really good experience.”