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August Issue 2007
The Light Factory in Charlotte, NC, Features Student Exchange Exhibition
Student art created for a Hurricane Katrina student art exchange is being displayed by The Light Factory in Charlotte, NC. The exhibit, Message in a Bottle: Reconstructing Lives, will be on view through Sept. 21, 2007, at the Wachovia, Loch Walker and Skyway Galleries in Spirit Square.
The exhibition features photography and film created from high school students in Charlotte and New Orleans documenting Hurricane Katrina recovery. Message in a Bottle is an original project, conceived by The Light Factory to promote media literacy and self-expression by examining one of the most profound natural and man-made disasters of the 21st century, Hurricane Katrina.
In the fall of 2006, students from Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools and New Orleans received instruction on the Hurricane Katrina disaster by talking to experts in their area, watching footage and analyzing media coverage of the storm and its aftermath. In Feb. 2007, thirty-six Charlotte students traveled to New Orleans where they partnered with fellow teens who survived the storm. For five days, they toured still-decimated areas of the Ninth Ward, documenting their experience with cameras. The Light Factory curators have compiled all the students' work into an exhibit called Message in a Bottle: Reconstructing Lives.
For Message in a Bottle the Loch Walker Gallery (in front of the Duke Power Theatre) will resemble a living room; next to it, the Skyway Gallery will be modified to look like a bedroom. Each room will feature furniture distressed to resemble storm and stagnant water damage. In both rooms, televisions will play films the students made, and the walls will be covered with student images. The walls of the Wachovia Gallery in Spirit Square will hold bottles the students found on their trip that they modified to creatively express a "call for help." This portion of the students' installation served as inspiration for the name of the project and exhibit, Message in a Bottle: Reconstructing Lives.
Sponsors for the exhibit include Wachovia, Grubb Properties, ArtsTeach, Stinson Charter, Charleston House Restaurant, the Arts and Science Council and the North Carolina Arts Council.
The Light Factory is one of only three organizations
in the United States that promote the power of image through photography
and film. For more than 30 years, The Light Factory has served
students, artists and the public at large by offering film screenings,
photography exhibits, classes and outreach programs that promote
media literacy and self-expression using the most power mediums
of our time.
For further information check our NC Institutional Gallery
listings, call TLF at 704-333-9755 or visit (www.lightfactory.org).
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