“Chalk Talk Kenosha” is a Community Art Project inspired by the photography of Minneapolis-based artist Wing Young Huie.
Nearly 200 photographs shown in the windows of downtown Kenosha April 28-May 28, 2012, exhibited at UW-Parkside Fine Arts Gallery, June 11-July 28, 2012; exhibited at Bradford High School spring 2013 and now on view at Celebre Place Senior Living in Kenosha. Banners featuring the work exhibited in January and February at the Wisconsin State Capital rotunda.
Read an article published in Wisconsin: People and Ideas about the project.
- over a hundred participants created the the project
- messages written to the community from community members
Photos created in workshops where participants answered the following questions:
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What are you?
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How do you think others see you? What don’t they see?
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What advice would you give to a stranger?
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What is your favorite word?
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Describe an incident that changed you.
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How have you been affected by race?
“Chalk Talk Kenosha: A Community Art Project” is made up of over 150 photographs taken by students from Tremper High School, Bradford High School and Harborside Academy using Wing Young Huie “chalk talk” technique together with photographs taken by the artist and others at “chalk talk” workshops hosted by the Boys and Girls Club Kenosha, Celebre Place Senior Living, Asissi Homes Senior Living, UW-Parkside, and Kenosha Literacy Council. Huie developed these open-ended questions to make “chalk talk” photographs, and during his residency last fall at UW-Parkside he conducted “chalk talk” workshops and shared his art with Kenosha area art teacher and students.
The messages in these photographs are poetic and philosophical. Sometimes they are funny. What is important about “chalk talk” photographs is that the people in the images tell us about themselves. And because they speak to us, we are less likely to create our own—perhaps mistaken—narratives about them. How would you answer these questions?
Contact gallery director Patricia Briggs (briggsp@uwp.edu) or Francisco Loyola at ExposeKenosha (franciscoloyola@gmail.com) if you would like to get involved.
