The Memory Project: Faces of Joy
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UW Nancy Nicholas Hall-Ruth Davis Design Gallery 1300 Linden Dr., Madison, Wisconsin 53706
press release: Our colleagues at the Ruth Davis Design Gallery are currently organizing the exhibition The Memory Project: Faces of Joy in fall 2017.
The charitable nonprofit Memory Project invites art teachers and their students to create and donate portraits to youth around the world who have faced substantial challenges, such as neglect, abuse, loss of parents, violence, and extreme poverty.
The Memory Project: Faces of Joy will feature 70 giclee prints drawn from a total of 3,000 portraits. The installation will also include framed documentary photographs, several videos related to the project, a contextualization of the history of Syria and the civil war, and quotes from the art students.
The exhibition will be on display from September 20 - November 19, 2017.
The exhibition is being developed in conjunction with The Memory Project, a local non-profit organization that is the brain child of Ben Schumaker, an alumnus of UW–Madison. It is a timely concept, and one that has been embraced by UNICEF. Realizing how their lives have been uprooted, Ben collected photographs through humanitarian aid agencies of children in Syrian relocation camps in Jordan. He then distributed the photographs to high school art students in America, who created portraits of the children. The portraits were then presented to the children as a gift, but also as a tangible record of their lives. The portraits are very telling, and Ben also captures great documentary footage of the process, particularly the children's reactions to receiving their portraits, and the universality of children's emotions and reactions. Visit memoryproject.org for more information.