“All the projects I have been part of involve social exploration, collaboration, some feminism and a criticism of the general ‘world of the arts.’ Lately, involving targeted audiences has dictated the process and the product. It is a road, a dream or a necessity, for an artist, to invent new territories, where the status of art and that of the artist, the destiny of the work, where or with whom it is produced, are part and parcel of its creation.” Gwylene Gallimard

Common Memory: The Community Visual Art Challenge of Gwylene Gallimard

See the Book documenting “The Charleston / Atlanta / Alaska Challenge: an art program: contemporary, environmental, participatory,” created to “build a common memory between all the participants.”

Click here to download PDF [5.5 mb]

As an environmental / contemporary / community art project, the Charleston/Atlanta/Alaska Challenge has involved artists and educators in a process which has included thirteen communities or classes. Its culminating event is a collaborative, large scale, participatory installation, representing a fictional river flowing from Alaska to the Low Country. From indigo-dyed kudzu transformed into a waterfall, foot paths turning into animal tracks, chains of natural materials designing a 25′ dreamcatcher, long undulating lines of text, to shelters, Father Sky, video, sound and a river of dreams… the whole environment is anchored with six murals about the Yukon river, a slide projection, works by some of the participating artists and the massive architecture of a 200 year old landmark: the Historic Charleston Old City Jail, which had been abandoned for 60 years. It is now the American College of the Building Arts. The project was initiated and mapped by Gwylene Gallimard.

The Yukon Project Video 1

The Yukon Project Video 2

The Yukon Project Video 3