Date: May 2015
Based in: Atlanta, GA

Atlanta-based video and social practice artist Erin Colleen Johnson was Wave Pool’s first Artist in Residence and winner of an ‘Art Space Is Your Space’ residency award. Throughout the month of May, she has been using the lens of soil as a starting point for events, performances and collaborations with artists, organizers, and visitors that investigate the intersections of race, class, migration, agriculture, and environmental justice.

Where Are You Starting?: A Groundbreaking Ceremony
Saturday, May 23, 11 am- 1 pm
Camp Washington Urban Farm
3220 Colerain Avenue

Join Erin Colleen Johnson, Lizzie Anderson and the Camp Washington Community Board for a tour of Camp Washington Urban Farm (donkeys included!), free brunch snacks, live music, and stories about place, belonging and land.

As part of the event there will be a groundbreaking ceremony for both the garden and yourself. Using a ceremonial shovel, participants will break ground for what they want to start to do, to think, to make in the coming days, weeks, or years. Certificates will be available to commemorate the moment.

Johnson and Anderson will have facilitated the groundbreaking ceremony with residents of the River City Correctional Center in Camp Washington on Friday, May 22nd. They will share the results of these previous ceremonies with the larger community during this ceremony.  

David A. Singleton from the Ohio Justice and Policy Center
Saturday, May 23, 6 pm- 7 pm
Wave Pool: A Contemporary Art Fulfillment Center
2940 Colerain Avenue

Come hear David A. Singleton, an attorney and Executive Director of the Ohio Justice and Policy Center (OJPC), talk about his work to eliminate racism within the criminal justice system, racial profiling, and excessive force by law enforcement. The OJPC is a non-partisan, nonprofit, public interest law office based in Cincinnati whose purpose is to reform Ohio’s justice system.

Providence Canyon Performative Lecture and Gallery Opening
Saturday, May 23, 7 pm- 8 pm
Wave Pool: A Contemporary Art Fulfillment Center
2940 Colerain Avenue

Camp Washington was the site of the first Ohio State Fair in 1850 and among the events that took place during this inaugural affair was an essay contest on the topic of “Improving the Soil.” At the same time, erosion, spurred by poor farming practices and the exploitation of the land and people through slavery, was forming an enormous web of gullies in the Southern United States. Today, 1000 acres of these human-made ravines comprise Providence Canyon State Park, nicknamed ‘Georgia’s Little Grand Canyon,’ and listed as one of the state’s Seven Natural Wonders.

Erin Colleen Johnson will address these sites and histories and many more through a performative lecture and experimental video work.

In addition, the gallery walls will hold the ephemera from the groundbreaking ceremony series.

Art Space is Your Space was supported in 2015 by the generosity of community contributions to the ArtsWave Campaign.