UIS Visual Arts Gallery presents “Walking Enos Park: Who is your neighborhood?” by Astrid Kaemmerling

The University of Illinois Springfield Visual Arts Gallery is pleased to present “Walking Enos Park: Who is your neighborhood?” by Enos Park artist-in-residence Astrid Kaemmerling. The gallery partnered with the Enos Park Residency for Visual Artists to fund Kaemmerling and a community-focused solo exhibition.

“Walking Enos Park: Who is your neighborhood?” will open with a reception on Wednesday, June 28 from 5:30 to 8 p.m. The exhibit will run from Wednesday, June 28 through Friday, July 28. The UIS Visual Arts Gallery is open for the duration of the exhibit on Saturdays from 12 to 4 p.m. or throughout the week by appointment.

“Walking Enos Park: Who is your neighborhood?” is a visual and sound art exhibition which aims to represent the voices of local residents and community members in order to uncover the character of Enos Park. “Who” is the Enos Park Neighborhood? -- and “What” do artists in Enos Park need to grow & prosper?

As an artist in residency at Enos Park, Kaemmerling is currently hosting the “Enos Park Community Walking Laboratory,” a community-centered walking art project. The exhibition represents the research she conducted during walks with individual community members through Enos Park. The laboratory will be open throughout the time of the exhibition from June 28 to July 28, and community members are welcome to make a walking appointment with the artist.

“The exhibition will grow over time, and aims to provide insights into the social, economic and demographic situation of Enos Park as seen, told and experienced through the eyes of the community,” said Kaemmerling.

Kaemmerling is a German-born artist, scholar and educator based in San Francisco, California. Her work as an interdisciplinary artist spans the genres of visual, performance and media art and strives to connect place memories of the past, such as collected travel experiences, with a critical exploration of specific neighborhoods and selected urban places.

Kaemmerling has been exhibited internationally in Germany, Italy, Korea and the United States. Her work has won several awards and fellowships, such as at the Cittadellarte-Fondazione Pistoletto (Italy) and the Vermont Studio Center (Vermont). She is the founder of The International Community of Artist-Scholars, a community of artists who work at the intersection of art & research, as well as founder of The Walk Discourse, a Bay Area based laboratory for walking artists and walking enthusiasts to share walking art methodologies, practices and tools. The interest in interdisciplinary collaboration has led her to the School of Interdisciplinary Arts at Ohio University where she received her Ph.D. and completed a dissertation on walking art; her writing has been published in peer-reviewed journals and publications.

The UIS Visual Arts Gallery is centrally located on the UIS campus in the Health and Science Building, room 201 (HSB 201). For more information on exhibition programming, please visit the UIS Visual Arts Gallery website at www.uis.edu/visualarts/gallery, or email Amanda Lazzara at alazz2@uis.edu.