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Miami University Residency Program Alumni Present Work at Hunter Museum of American Art

Three Miami University Over-the-Rhine Residency Program alumni were invited to present their social practice art piece, Wonderland, during the Student Symposium on Placemaking at the Hunter Museum of American Art in Chattanooga, TN.

Symposium organizers Dr. Olivia Wolf (University of Tennessee, Chattanooga) and museum curator of education Adera Causey adjusted the format of the symposium to include the Miami students’ submittal of placemaking-in-practice, as it complemented other research-oriented proposals.

Miami students Elliot Jones Boyle and Molly Burns delivered a Pecha Kucha styled presentation at the symposium about the piece on March 24. Pecha Kucha (Japanese for "chatter"), applies a simple set of rules to presentations: exactly 20 slides displayed for 20 seconds each. Wonderland, was originally staged at the Miami University Center for Community Engagement in October 2018. The piece was a social practice art event set around a figurative table constructed by Miami students, set to live music and a light show. Two neighborhood residents: a developer, and a Cincinnati councilperson then gathered to enact the imbalances, disproportions, disorientation, and varied perspectives in the world of neighborhood (re)development.

The facilitating artist for Wonderland was Mary Clare Rietz. Event designers included Miami University Architecture students Alanna Kuether, Elliott Jones Boyle, and Molly Burns and Madison Britt from Social Justice Studies; Razvan Ruxanda from Sinclair Community College with John Blake, design-build studio instructor, interim director, Miami University Center for Community Engagement.

Wonderland was act III of Storefronts, a series of art installations challenging the dominant social, economic and political narratives attempting to define Cincinnati neighborhoods. Storefronts offer alternative, conflicting, disruptive perspectives, experiences, analyses, and possibilities as active, transactional opportunities where there is agency on both sides of the storefront glass.