MONROE, Mich. – The Foundation at Monroe County Community College and MCCC's Art Department are working with artist Beatrix Reinhardt on the “Whispers on the 41st Latitude,” a community art project open to all ages. Reinhardt will guide participants through free, 30-minute mini-workshops to learn the early photographic method called cyanotype.
Community participants are asked to bring a plant or weed along with the coordinates where it was harvested. Hours of operation for the Workshop Hub will be posted on the door or appointments at the Workshop Hub can be scheduled by calling 347-968-1357. The whole process, depending on sunlight conditions, will take approximately 30 minutes. Plans do include scheduling pop-up group workshops throughout Monroe County during the month of September. "The community is invited to visit the Workshop Hub throughout the coming weeks to see the progress we are making, or even stop in to contribute to the process and create a cyanotype.
Reinhardt will be conducting workshops at the Bedford Branch Library from 2 - 4 p.m. on Tuesday, Sept. 13; The River Raisin National Battlefield Park from 11 - 4 p.m. on Saturday, Sept. 17 and in the Workshop Hub from noon - 4 p.m. on Wednesday, Sept. 14 and Thursday, Sept. 15 and from 1 - 5 p.m. on Friday, September 16.
"We are also working to schedule sessions at other gathering places in the county in the coming weeks," said Reinhardt. "I welcome any organization who is interested in hosting a workshop, which is quite simple, to contact me to schedule a morning, afternoon or evening session." Reinhardt can be reached at 347-968-1357 or Beatrix.Reinhardt@csi.cuny.edu.
More information, including dates and locations for the community workshops and hours for the Workshop Hub can be found on the MCCC website, www.monroeccc.edu in the Events section. "This is a beautiful opportunity for people of all ages and areas of interest to be involved in something that will live on for years and generations to come. Those who like photography, art, printing, music, sound, energies, history, community, horticulture, habitats, farming and much more can be touched in some way or another by participating in this activity," said Reinhardt while describing the uniqueness of "Whispers on the 41st Latitude."
"The community will also be invited to participate and celebrate the permanent installation of the collective cyanotype contributions from residents, and encouraged to visit and enjoy it in perpetuity," she added.
“Whispers on the 41st Latitude” is a community art project funded by The Foundation at MCCC in partnership workshop location hosts, and through the generous support of our sponsors: Consumers Energy Foundation, DTE Energy, First Merchants Bank, La-Z-Boy Inc., and ProMedica Monroe Regional Hospital. Additional thanks to WCSLICKER AND ASSOCIATES, INC. for providing the Workshop Hub location.
Reinhardt has created other similar installations in Vietnam, Spain and Iran, along with many other unique artistry that can be explored at https://www.beatrixreinhardt.com/. She grew up in Jena, formerly in East Germany. Her artistic investigations and productions focus on the politics of space. When working with exterior spaces, she is interested in looking at what she calls “charged sites,” sites endowed with significant histories; spaces that endure(d) drama and/or tensions. However, her images offer little or no discernible evidence of this history, either the past event or any current tensions associated with it, the implications being that significance can only be materialized by human experience. Her works explore the relationship between space, memory and history, and increasingly the notion of the trace.
One space that recurrently sparked her attention has been the battlefield. She has investigated battlefields in South Africa, Spain and Serbia among others. When working with these historical spaces she has focused on the element of grass and weeds - the last entity a soldier sees and the first sign of life that returns after soil experiences a major violation. In her works she elevates these plants and weeds to be a type of witness, historian or author and create imaginary spaces that allows an exchange and conversation amongst them. "It was a natural fit for me to bring this opportunity to Monroe County in partnership with MCCC given it is the home to the very unique River Raisin National Battlefield Park."
She has lived, worked, exhibited and taught in different parts of the world. She currently works for City University of New York/ College of Staten Island. She holds an MFA in photography from Illinois State University, MA degree in Media Studies from the New School for Social Research in NYC and a BA from the Freie Universität Berlin in New German Literature with minors in Linguistics and Psychology. She has exhibited in Europe, North America, Africa, Australia and Asia. Awards received include individual artist fellowships and artist’s project grants from the CUNY Research Foundation, John Anson Kitteredge Foundation, Australian National University and other non-for-profit arts organizations and residency programs. Her work was featured in a variety of publications including Die Zeit (Germany), Contact Sheet (USA), Prefix Photo (Canada), Flash Forward 2007 Book (Magenta Foundation), the photoMagazin (Germany), among others. To learn more, visit https://www.beatrixreinhardt.com/.
Dr. Gordon Marsh holds degrees from the Eastman School of Music, the University of California at Irvine, and the University of Chicago. Originally from southern California, Dr. Marsh studied composition with the late Roy Harris and was a recipient of the Los Angeles Young Artists Foundation Scholarship and a finalist for the Debut Award. While at Eastman, he received both the José Echaniz Prize and Ethel Lannin Prize for his performances, studying with Frank Glazer and Cécile Staub Genhart. At Chicago, his composition teachers included John Eaton, Shulamit Ran and Ralph Shapey. His dissertation composition “Sonata in Four Movements for Violin and Piano” was nominated for the Galler Prize, awarded for distinguished dissertations in the humanities. In 1996, Dr. Marsh joined the faculty of the Fine Arts Department at Roanoke College, where he teaches courses in the theory, history, and composition of music, including both world and popular music. Over the years, Dr. Marsh has performed as recitalist, chamber pianist, concerto soloist, and conductor, and has won numerous awards for his compositions. He has presented scholarly papers at regional, national, and international venues. Dr. Marsh’s compositions explore harmonic transformations, and his scholarly work focuses on the phenomenology of performance. Exhibitions of his sound art have included installations in France, Germany, and the United States.