Since Robin Garcia and LaRissa Rogers began teaching in the University of Virginia’s art department two years ago, they’ve been thinking about how to turn the empty lot behind Ruffin Hall into functional space.
“We knew we wanted to renovate this into something that could simultaneously speak to collective history and personal narrative, that could also be a community space,” Rogers said.
Their students will unveil the sculpture garden they created for the lot as part of the semester-long project on Friday. For their pieces, students gathered soil from sites with personal significance to create sculptures that reflect on how memory lives in stories, objects and place.
The public arts initiative, “Where Memory Lives,” is a collaboration between students in the Wood, Metal and Casting Techniques course, taught by Rogers, and Memory, Monuments and Public Space, taught by Garcia, a postdoctoral fellow focused on arts leadership.
While sculpture students are making the installations, arts administration students have been split into groups to handle marketing, curation, archiving, logistics and production. A team of students that documents each piece and the inspiration behind it.
“We’ve been working throughout the semester to make the soil fertile,” Garcia said. “The students planted clover at the end of winter, which has been slower to grow, but coming.”
The exhibit opens Friday and will run for two weeks. (Contributed photo)
Students built a wall of wood panels to give the outdoor space a frame and more of a “third space” feeling. This week, they are planting flowers, mostly native Virginia plants, to add more life around the space.
“They selected plants that are symbolic of the landscape and history of Virginia, in addition to a few species that some have a specific relationship with,” Garcia said.
Those won’t be the only flowers found in the garden. Meredith Kershisnik built a series of welded flowers based on conversations she had with community members who told her stories of places relevant to them that are associated with a flower.
Julia McKechnie built a gazebo from memories of her dad waking up regularly to build one in her childhood, wanting to offer a place of rest in the garden.
Students have also designed a rock path outlined by mulch that resembles a river flowing through the space. “The idea of the river rock came from the various rivers and tributaries that we can see in the land, and also the ones we can’t see,” Garcia said.
