Center For Documentary Expression And Art

Documentary projects resulting in place-based education (pbe)- artists/scholars-in-residence (asir) programs place-based education displays are smaller than major exhibits and are designed for use in utah's k-12 public schools, public libraries, and rural museums. Exhibits contain photographs and oral histories (with related didactic text). They are booked from four-to-eight weeks at each educational site. Four place-based education displays are currently available. In order of their development, they are: - faces and voices of refugee youth (2002); - sacred images: a vision of native american rock art (2007); - reawakened beauty: the past, present, and future of the jordan river (2009); and - justice-memory-artivism (2014). Three of the above exhibits (sacred images; reawakened beauty; and justice-memory-artivism) accompany cdea-designed artists/scholars-in- residence (asir) programs and are designed to engage k-16 students in intensive, place-based projects that promote study and practice of the documentary arts; generate original student art; and integrate arts learning with learning in other subjects. Place-based education displays and their accompanying artists/scholars-in- residence programs enable students to create original art while exploring such varied subjects as: utah ancient and contemporary history, utah's cultural diversity, indigenous cultures, indigenous art, ecology, biology, environmental science, immigration, discrimination based on race, and cross cultural communication. Over the past twenty-four months, sacred images: a vision of native american rock art-artists/scholars-in-residence program was presented at pleasant grove high school in the alpine school district. Reawakened beauty: the past, present, and future of the jordan river- artists/scholars-in-residence program was presented to south valley high school students, in the jordan school district, at cdea's new outdoor classroom site in south jordan. And justice-memory-artivism- artists/scholars-in-residence program was presented at the mcgillis school in salt lake city. A presentation of cdea's new residency, "we are telling our stories (watos)," took place at the west valley performing arts center in june 2024 in cooperation with university neighborhood partners, west valley city, and salt lake community college. This most recent watos program featured dr. David gonzalez, a nationally-celebrated poet, storyteller, and musician. Cdea also is pleased to confirm the continuing presentation of its reawakened beauty: the past, present, and future of the jordan river- artists/scholars-in-residence program. In 2022, cdea partnered with the utah reclamation mitigation and conservation commission to build three, modest, outdoor classrooms on its 123-acre, migratory bird reserve in south jordan. The outdoor classrooms provide a long-term locus for cdea's reawakened beauty residencies, while offering the urmcc a compelling, multi-disciplinary educational program aimed at guiding young people (high school and college age) to become stewards of this unique site.