The community’s pandemic reflections will be on display in an exciting collaborative exhibition, Our Town: Williamsburg 2020 Community Art Project, made possible by a partnership between the Williamsburg Regional Library, William & Mary Libraries, Muscarelle Museum of Art, and local arts organization CultureFix VA. The exhibition will be staged at the Stryker Center library exhibition space, 412 N. Boundary St., Williamsburg, and will run from 8/29/20 through 10/31/20.
Libraries' Life During COVID-19 Collection.
In April 2020, the Williamsburg Regional Library (WRL) invited the community to participate in an art and memory project to capture the realities of life under quarantine. Over 130 items were submitted, including visual and written art. William & Mary Libraries also started a Life During COVID-19 documentation project and collected photographs, poems, journals, artwork, and videos from the campus and local community. The exhibition will also include the debut of CultureFix VA’s community wine bottle sculpture, Stay at Home. This impressive work of collaborative art includes over 250 wine bottles painted by community members, displayed in a stylized house frame.
Submissions to the libraries are being curated and mounted by staff from the Muscarelle Museum of Art and W&M Libraries. The exhibition will be mounted on the Stryker Center windows facing Boundary Street and City Square and visible from outside the building 24/7 to allow for open air social distancing and a dynamic street art experience. The exhibition will also include a digital display scrolling poetry and other written material submitted by community members.
WRL director Betsy Fowler notes, “Libraries are the place where people from across the community connect, and the Our Town: Williamsburg 2020 Community Art Project is an opportunity to have that shared experience in a different and very powerful way. We are excited by the opportunity to collaborate and help showcase the expertise of the Muscarelle Museum of Art and William and Mary Libraries, and the energy and creativity of CultureFix.”
