WATERVILLE — At a time when the Surgeon General has declared loneliness an epidemic, an artist in central Maine has teamed up with a community-based arts organization to leverage art’s power to connect and heal.
Waterville Creates welcomes social engagement artist Peter Bruun and the Together project for a month of exhibitions and workshops focusing on the positive impact art can have on all types of community, according to a news release from Jackie Ferlito with Waterville Creates.
Last year Bruun partnered with Waterville Creates, a nonprofit building community through transformative arts experiences for all, to address isolation in the Waterville area. The resulting project, Together, is engaging people across the region to examine what community means to them.
An opening event set for Friday, April 5, features an art-and-audio installation, “Hearing, Holding, Healing” in the Ticonic Gallery at the Paul J. Schupf Art Center, 93 Main St., in which the voices of Waterville youth complement an exhibition with nearly 100 artworks by residents, each sharing a story of positive community experience. The installation is sponsored by Surette Real Estate, Morning Sentinel/Kennebec Journal, MaineGeneral Health, the City of Waterville, and Kennebec Savings Bank.
April 5 also marks the simultaneous openings of two additional Together exhibitions. Anecdotes and Inspirations features dozens of works created in painting and drawing workshops led by Bruun over the preceding several months. The pieces will be on display throughout the Paul J. Schupf Art Center.
Art for All is an open call exhibition representing a multitude of artworks sharing two common qualities: the art has been made in the Waterville area, and it broadly speaks to themes of living, working, and playing together in the region. The exhibition will be placed in buildings and storefronts on and around Main Street, serving as a de facto celebration of a diverse creative community.
Related events throughout the month will touch on the needs of youth and those affected by addiction and connect the business community by spotlighting how the arts can be an economic driver that improves livability in communities. The final event on Saturday, April 27, will bring all participants together and showcase additional participating organizations, including the Waterville Area Art Society, Colby Arts, Educare, and Mid-Maine Regional Community Adult Education.
By using art as the catalyst to interrupt social patterns that lead to isolation, Together offers a model of social practice that any community can emulate, creating a healthier and more connected population.
“That is the beauty of linking art to actual social outcomes in strategic ways, such as I’ve sought to do with Together,” said Bruun. “People’s voices not only rise, not only are lit up, but they also come to matter.”
This project is supported in part by the National Endowment for the Arts and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and realized in partnership with the Colby College Museum of Art and its Lunder Institute for American Art.
For more information, visit bruunstudios.com and watervillecreates.org.