The Land of Here and Now: Five Years of Artists at Shared Space Studio

Instead of running the artist residency at Shared Space this summer, my co-facilitator Mary Rothlisberger and I have curated a group exhibition at the Fed Galleries of KCAD in downtown Grand Rapids.
Established in 2011, the residency at Shared Space Studio offered visiting artists and artists-in- residence facilities and support in a secluded and beautiful setting of rural west Michigan. During the summers, 34 artists from across the US and Canada have lived in Pentwater and produced work in collaboration with the community. During their stay, they made new work inspired by the environment and fostered by the facility, while engaging the local community and offering fresh ideas.
The range of artistic discipline and experience has been broad and inclusive; musicians, performers, writers, zinesters, painters, choreographers, ceramicists, designers, filmmakers, quilters, illustrators, animators, and photographers have all worked together at Shared Space Studio. As a collection, the body of work formed and performed within this space is complex and unique. This exhibition brings together this diverse group and showcases the spirit of collaboration and creative placemaking. Honoring the studio itself, and the town of Pentwater, The Land of Here and Now pairs documentation of the artists’ process and play with a group show of new work by 27 of the past residents. In the tradition of including the public in our process, there will be performance and interactive programming for the run of the show, from early June to late July, 2016.
Check the gallery website for a full list of events.

The Land of Here and Now is a title borrowed from our favorite local folk hero, Swift Lathers. Lathers (1889-1970) wrote and published the worlds smallest weekly newspaper for 40 years, homesteaded in the Silver Lake Dunes, and was famous for hitchhiking everywhere he went and wearing a peculiar outfit every day. 

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