The Light Factory Outreach Student Art Exchanges
Every year, The Light Factory joins students together from all walks of life. Whether across a state or an ocean, we engage students in dialogue about their daily life -what makes them different, but more often, what draws them together.
Self Image (School Year 2010-2011)
The Light Factory Contemporary Museum of Photography and Film is conducting an international outreach program entitled, Self Image. Students from all over the world will be invited to participate in creating photographs and stop motion animations that express their personal perspective on what it means to be a man or a woman. Students will respond to gender ideals and stereotypes they encounter in the media, their culture, and their personal experiences. Professional teaching artists will guide students through the creative process in Hawthorne and Myers Park High Schools and virtually using Skype and Flickr.
The final product of this photography program will consist of an online exhibition and a professional display in The Light Factory Contemporary Museum of Photography and Film.
Vanishing Point (School Year 2009-2010)
“What is the feeling when you're driving away from people, and they recede on the plain till you see their specks dispersing? -it's the too huge world vaulting us, and it's good-bye. But we lean forward to the next crazy venture beneath the skies.” – Jack Kerouac
In the fall of 2009, students from Vance High School and the Renaissance School at Olympic High School boarded a bus for an unforgettable journey across the state of North Carolina to meet new friends at partnering schools West Columbus High School in Columbus County and Currituck County High School Currituck County. They used photography and poetry to explore the road – as a literal issue and as a metaphor. Inspired by the concepts raised in The Romance of the Road exhibition, Vanishing Point is the artistic expression of students on a journey.
Learn more about the project and culminating exhibition, Vanishing Point.
China I-Sights (School Year 2008-2009)
In the fall of 2008, The Light Factory kicked-off, China I-Sights, a media literacy art exchange between students in Charlotte and China. Sixty students participated from Providence High, North Mecklenburg High and the International School at Garinger High. During the semester, students in both countries studied aspects of one another’s homeland and worked together to create an art project that fostered dialogue and discussion about their daily lives.
That December, The Light Factory took sixteen of the Charlotte students to China for an amazing two-week long journey. The photography and film projects the students created during the project was displayed in an exhibit that ran from January to April 2009 concurrently with the fine art exhibition that inspired the entire project, China : Insights.
Learn more about the project and culminating exhibition, China I-Sights.
Message in a Bottle: Reconstructing Lives (School Year 2006-2007)
The Light Factory brought thirty-six Charlotte students New Orleans who sought to document Hurricane Katrina reconstruction with their cameras. Filmmaking students at Providence High School and photography students from Harding and Myers Park High Schools saw destruction and interviewed survivors to shape their own thoughts and feelings about the disaster. Inspiried by the parent exhibition, Artifacts of Remembrance, Message in the Bottle was the artistic expressions of students responding to an S.O.S.
Learn more about the project and culminating exhibition, Message in a Bottle: Reconstructing Lives.
Freedom Box (2006)
The project with South African students, Freedom Box took students on a journey that resulted in the creation of art pieces, boxes, which had images on the outside that represented segregation and on the inside that represented integration. The work that inspired the project was 32 Hours in a Box, by artist Pat Ward Williams, which represented the actual size of a box in which a slave literally mailed himself to freedom – from Virginia to Philadelphia. This piece was a centerpiece of The Light Factory's Fabricated Harmony exhibit, featuring the work of American artist Williams and South African artist Sue Williamson. Both artists’ work addressed the civil rights movements and segregation in their respective countries.
