ARTcation

ARTcation: A Community Wide Education Collaboration
Written by Elizabeth Goddard, Director of Education at the Urban Institute for Contemporary Arts

What do you get when educators from diverse arts, cultural and humanities organizations in Grand Rapids come together to design and implement a creative and engaging day of learning for middle and high school students? You get ARTcation, that’s what.  So what exactly is it; a little vacation, a little education?  

ARTcation is a community wide collaboration between art and humanities organizations that use downtown Grand Rapids as a learning laboratory. By combining our resources, we provide students with free programming that support multi-sensory learning experiences and active curriculum investigations.

The committee that became Artcation was the culmination of a group of professional educators working in museums, organizations, universities, institutes and school districts who came together seeking ways to collaborate and contribute to the student experience during Art Prize at the beginning of the school year.  The main intent was to put some structure around a school day utilizing participating Art Prize venues and artists.  

Each member of the ARTcation committee contributed content to a free educator’s packet, which outlined objectives and key concepts for each learning station.  Educators were able to download the packet for pre and post ARTcation classroom activities.  Last fall’s ARTcation program was made possible by the hard work of nine organizations that developed four core themes at four venues across downtown.  In August the committee thought at best we’d get 300-500 students to participate. But come ARTcation day on September 24, 2009, it was closer to 2,000 participants.  We were overwhelmed and elated to see so many educators and their students utilizing the exceptional education resources of Grand Rapids.  

In an evaluation a teacher commented, “What a wonderful time we had at ARTcation Day. The students were given a wide range of useful information. We were amazed at how well organized everything was. Every section we went to was prepared for us. We felt so special.”

With consistent feedback similar to the quote above the committee considered a spring event.  We began meeting while there was still snow on the ground.  And before the thaw we were well on our way developing and planning another ARTcation event for May 6 from 9 am-2:30 pm.

The big idea or theme this spring is dis.place.ment, which is the title of a large group exhibit in the Monroe Gallery at UICA.  It is a very broad subject area that touches on many various subthemes.  The following outlines four subthemes, venues and cultural partnerships of the May 6 event:

Wildlife Preservation and the Andy Warhol Endangered Species Series at the Grand Rapids Art Museum. Hosted by the GRAM and Kendall College of Art and Design.

Is Where You Live Who You Are? at the Grand Rapids Public Library.  Hosted by GRPL, Grandville Avenue Arts and Humanities and the Boys and Girls Club of Grand Rapids Youth Commonwealth.

Cabinet of Wonder: Explore, Create, Re-imagine at the Old Public Museum Hosted by the Grand Rapids Public Museum and Paul Amenta’s Michigan Land of Riches exhibit.

Contemporary Place, Replace and Displace at the Urban Institute for Contemporary Art.  Hosted by UICA and Grand Valley State University.

Like last fall ARTcation has created an educator’s packet for participating educators.  Each partnering organization has prepared lessons, based on artifacts and exhibits that investigate the multifaceted nature of feeling or being displaced as an individual or a group.  Our goal is for students to come away from this spring’s ARTcation event with a deeper awareness of their own experiences in relation to the theme and that of others in our local and global communities.

ARTcation will return for Art Prize. We would like that event to grow into a two day learning extravaganza, one day for middle and high school students and one for elementary students.  So yes, ARTcation is a little bit vacation, relaxing and exploring resources in our vibrant downtown. It is a good amount of education, provided by some really smart and talented educators and professionals who work in cultural venues across town and it is a whole lot of community collaboration between organizations that provide programming and resources for students of all ages.

To learn more about ARTcation, please contact Elizabeth Goddard egoddard@uica.org.