Urban Arts Space serves as The Ohio State University’s arts laboratory, an exhibition and alternative performance space for faculty, students, and local, national, and international artists. Urban Arts Space offers free community programing. This summer, we are presenting more free programming than ever before.
Urban Arts Space provides the community with creative opportunities for people of all ages and capabilities. Throughout the year, we program free experiences such as Art Explorations, Summer Arts Camps, and public tours of exhibitions for children, families, and adults with disabilities. Lesson plans are developed by Ohio State Arts Education undergraduates and are designed to connect participants with each other and with the artwork in the gallery. Summer Arts Camp at Urban Arts Space is particularly immersive, giving students the opportunity to build, sketch, collaborate, write, and think critically all while making new friends and honing their visual art skills.
This July, Urban Arts Space added a third summer camp to its line-up, this one was directed at teens ages 11-14 and focused on Zines. Zines are unique, small books filled with drawings, poems, short stories, or anything else the teens could imagine. The students used Zines as memoirs to share thoughts and ideas about the world around them, as well as showcase their artistic abilities. The five-day camp featured guest artists from the Columbus community. The camp concluded with a Zine swap between campers and other Zine enthusiasts, and a private reception with family and friends.
Throughout the summer, fall, and spring, Urban Arts Space and the Columbus Downtown Development Corporation partner to offer tours of the Lazarus Building rooftop garden. The program includes a tour of Urban Art Space’s exhibitions and the building’s sustainability efforts.
On the third Saturday of every month, the space fills up for Crafternoons!, a free craft program geared towards adults with an eye for repurposing and reinvention. Crafternoons! aims to spread knowledge of up-cycling and thrift, and makes use of supplies donated by other local organizations.
For the literary enthusiast, Urban Arts Space is home to Paging Columbus, a monthly poetry and prose reading curated by the Storialist herself, Hannah Stephenson. Stephenson organizes the readings based on themes, like teen angst, ghost stories, and the city of Columbus. Urban Arts Space also hosts a monthly book club called Gentle Readers; see uas.osu.edu for a schedule of books and meetings.
This summer Urban Arts Space opens its doors to one of its biggest international exhibitions yet, PULL LEFT, an exhibition of contemporary Chinese art from July 26 – September 6, 2014. Along with the exhibition, are free, one-time only events such as a curator’s talks, a free reception with the artists and curators, gallery tours in Chinese and English, and curator-led walk-throughs. PULL LEFT also brings special children’s programming opportunities for area schools and universities to participate in tours created for their needs.
For a full list of Urban Arts Space’s free programs and events visit our website or join the mailing list.
All photos were taken by Ada Matusiewicz and Catherine Elicson. Kelly McNicholas, Adam Trick and Merijn van der Heijden collaborated on the text.
GCAC Presents is a bi-weekly column brought to you by the Greater Columbus Arts Council – supporting art and advancing culture in Columbus – in partnership with the Columbus Arts Marketing Association, a professional development and networking association of arts marketers. Each column will be written by a different local arts organization to give you an insiders look at the arts in Columbus.