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Making History

A Site-Specific Workshop

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Project made possible by funding from the

College of Arts and ArchitectureThe University of North Carolina at Charlotte

9201 University City BlvdCharlotte, NC 28223-0001

704.687.4841

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Inaugurating several collaborative programs within the Uni-versity of North Carolina at Charlotte’s new College of Arts+ Architecture, Netherlands-based designer Harmen Liemburgserved as artist in residence in early Spring 2009. In an eight-day residency - from January 19th to January 26th - Liemburgmet with students and faculty, launched the traveling exhibi-tion “Ultra Light,” and presented a public lecture about hiscontinuing work. Operating equally between the fields ofprintmaking, graphic design, and journalism, Liemburg em-phasized within his lecture the deliberate appropriation ofspecific sites and cultures in his work, ranging from the ico-nography of America’s Parks and Recreations Services to therarefied print collections of the Maison d’art BernardAnthonioz in France. Liemburg’s residency culminated in acollaboration with Professors Nora Wendl, Rachele Riley, andJohn Ford to direct a two-day intensive printmaking work-shop with students of both the School of Architecture andthe Department of Art and Art History.

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The Artists:

Virginia FairclothRonna GardnerBrandt Hewitt

Kristen HowardMarshall Ling

Megan McGuinnJoe MattoxZac Porter

Liz RichardsonSarah Robinson

Josh ShopeRichard SouthMatthew WalshAmber D Watts

Charlotte Whitlock

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Making History: A Site-Specific Workshop focuses onthe history of Charlotte, North Carolina, a city originallyfounded at the intersection of two Native American tradingroutes. The history of this city is typified by a rich but largelynarrative or mythic history, and marked by the loss of its physicalhistory resulting from its rush to modernization and its re-invention as a stronghold in the New South.

Workshop participants explored significant themes in theevolution of Charlotte, producing five unique portfolios:“Mythology and City-Making,” “Bar(Code) Charlotte,” “UrbanRenewal: project no. r-16,” “Industry and Technology,” and“Money is King in the Queen City.” The fifteen participatingstudents executed the resulting works on paper with limitedexperience in screen printing techniques, and one month ofresearch, which included a guided tour of the Levine Museumof the New South by historian Dr. Tom Hanchett. In twointensive studio days, the teams learned the mechanics ofprintmaking processes as well as more nuanced designapproaches to integrating their (new) ideas with found andhistoric imagery. The following portfolio documents their workin earnest, capturing the intensity of their thematic researchinto this city’s (visually) unwritten history.

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.Images from the Liemburg exhibition “Ultra Light”

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.Following are selected works from each student portfolio

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Mythology and City-Making

Virginia Faircloth, Liz Richardson, Josh Shope

Representing Charlotte’s mythic history and mid-centuryboosterism, these prints use simple graphics from a variety ofsources to tell the story of both the pioneers who may (or maynot) have declared independence from England in 1775, andthe trailblazers who worked to create a new Charlotte in postwarAmerica. The exponential growth of the city in the last sixtyyears and the story of the Mecklenburg Declaration ofIndependence fascinated us and gave us a strong interest inproducing these prints.

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Bar (code) Charlotte

Brandt Hewitt, Megan McGuinn, Zac Porter

Through a process of distortion, Charlotte’s tangible landscapesare reconfigured in order to mimic the sterility and lack ofscale in historical rhetoric. The result is a playful “branding”of the city.

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Urban Renewal: Project No. nc r-16

Sarah Robinson, Matthew Walsh, Amber Watts

Our group concentration was originally “Changing Demo-graphics.” We focused on the 1960’s redevelopment of “Brook-lyn” or modern-day 2nd Ward and the culture of this African-American neighborhood. We took images from a variety ofplaces, events and people, and arranged them to push theedges of the pages —relating to the tension brought on by thedestruction of the neighborhood. The extreme color changesof the prints resemble the drastic changes of the neighbor-hood from the early 1900’s to present day.

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Industry and Technology

Ronna Gardner, Joe Mattox, Charlotte Whitlock

The subject of our prints is industry and technology, withspecific respect to the cotton mills of the North Davidsondistrict of Charlotte. Our prints attempt to juxtapose manyof the grave themes associated with the mills, such as childlabor, pollution and their decay over time, against thepropaganda that was used to advertise the industry at thattime.

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Money is King in the Queen City

Richard South, Kristen Howard, Marshall Ling

Charlotte, North Carolina is widely known as one of ournation’s banking powerhouses, but what few people know isthat Charlotte’s roots in the money run deep . . . over 300 ft.deep in fact. Charlotte was first put on the map during theearly 1830’s when the first gold rush to hit the U.S. began herein the Queen City. After the government recognized theamount of gold available here, they placed a mint in our up-town city, and thus began the banking tradition. Now standingover 870 ft. tall in the heart of uptown Charlotte, is thelargest bank in America —The Bank of America.

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Documentary credits:

John FordRachele Riley (video & web)

Sarah Robinson (image scans)Nora Wendl

Workshop technical assistance:

Lacey BeamJason ChandlerDarren Goins

Lauren GosnellLauren Puckett

Special thanks:

Dr. Tom Hanchett, Levine Museum of the New South (for research assistance)Dean Ken Lambla (for endorsing cross-disciplinary activity)

Todd Payne (for studio modifications and other technical support)

Catalog design & production:

Print Media StudioDepartment of Art and Art History - UNC Charlotte

http://www.art.uncc.edu/printmedia.html

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ISLA