Artist in Residence

Creative-Strategy workshops were a way to embolden students and staff to engage in creative ideation, the process of play, and the practice of documentation. Starting the year following along with the pollinator project,Alan interviewed community members, researchers, conservationists, and professors. Interview after interview I quickly learned that the themes were always the same: the importance of interdependence, the cyclical nature of all things, and the quest to solve complex problems. These themes that are critical to research, conservation, and pollination struck a chord. In his second semester he focused on leading a series of creative workshops to engage this community with the arts, in the hopes of bolstering them in the areas he considered most important for sustainable work.  Workshops were held in the landscape often in spaces designated for pollinator protection.

Alan Barrett (b. 1999) Is a potter and painter from Roswell, Georgia. Being drawn to clay because of its precarious nature as a material, he found he was just as captivated by the community surrounding the craft. While making closely with other artists to create utilitarian objects he began to consider the figure more than ever. Working in both pottery and portraiture he sees the two aspects of his practice, aesthetically different, but conceptually grounded in the investigation of the human experience. Although a dedicated studio-artist, Barrett also has a passion for increasing the accessibility of the arts through education. In his time serving as the Artist In Residence of the UGA’s Office of Sustainability, he invested time in understanding the culture of sustainable work in order to conduct workshops and promote dialogue about the importance of the creative process in professional spheres. Barrett will Graduate with his B.F.A. In Ceramics and his A.B. in Advertising in May of 2022. In 2021 he proposed and curated his first collaborative show, “Time at The Table”. He was the recipient of the Balsano Family Arts scholarships and the Lyndon House Merit award in 2020. Barrett has also shown in numerous group shows in the Athens and Atlanta area.

For the 2019-2020 Academic Year, the Artist in Residence embedded in Foodshed UGA, engaging campus and community in sustainability through food production, access and waste.  Kylie researched the many ways that the food system impacts our lives. From seed to sew, and back to soil, the moving pieces of the food system are absolutely critical to both human sustenance and global sustainability. As the artist in resident, and naturally, a consumer, the fall semester was a perpetual reflection of our role in the food system, as well as ways in which we can mitigate our impact within it.  Kylie engaged in several projects during this time including sewing and distributing reusable sliverware kits out of old unrecycleable banner material, and building little free pantries for food distribution made our of reclaimed wood.  

Reusable silverware kits handsewn from recycled vinyl banners repurpose this hard to recycle material and discourage the use of single use plastics. We made 120 kits for the Georgia Museum of Art Student Night and will continue to make kits for future events. 

Little free pantries wear the phrase, “Take what you need, leave what you can” an ideology applicable to many facets of food production. Sourced from entirely reclaimed material, we introduced one of these pantries in front of the Soul Winner’s Ministries off of West Broad street. Pictured here is another pantry by Girl Scout troop 12051 in front of Boulevard Animal Hospital. Please consider donating to one of these pantries this holiday season.

The Athens Supper Club was a free dinner organized by myself and a friend. Soup, bread, and dessert sourced completely from otherwise wasted food. This evening sought to bring together hungry people and tasty food. We had hoped to continue this process and the documentation of such, but were rudely interrupted by COVID-19.

Spring 2020 was anticipated to include a complete multimedia sculpture connected to Audio stories about people and their relationship with food. However COVID 19 Disrupted these plans. 

Connecting Diverse Communities Through Athens' Stories, Symbols and Sounds of Resilience. Imagination Squared is a free social experiment that incites contemplation and conversation on how we strengthen and adapt in a rapidly changing world. Free five-inch wood squares are offered around Athens for individuals or teams to modify as they consider the role resilience plays in their lives or research. After squares are returned, participants may add stories of resilience. Stories and squares are uploaded on imaginationsquared.org. The official unveiling of all returned squares will be exhibited at The Lyndon House in Athens, GA in October, 2020. Later, Imagination Squared will be gifted to the City of Athens for permanent installation.

Christina Foard

Foard's work circles themes of occlusion of information and intentional misinformation. She is interested in dichotomies surrounding vulnerability and accountability; for example, the tension between confessions and secrets.

Christina Foard received a BFA University of Cincinnati and has over 25 years non-profit management experience. Foard's early career was focused on new-media communications projects in the Washington DC area and in 2004 shifted towards arts administration roles: Public Programs Director for The Cummer Museum of Arts and Gardens; and later, Director of Arts in Medicine at the University of Florida Medical Center Jacksonville. Foard began to paint professionally in 2008, concurrent with her arts administration career. With the help of several gallery relationships, Foard has shown nationally and internationally and has participated in 8 solo exhibitions and over 30 group exhibitions. Since 2014, Foard has lived in Athens, GA with her husband, a Professor of Ecology at the Odum School of Ecology, and their five children, all of whom are now in undergrad programs around the country (NY, CA, FL, and two in Atlanta).

The Athens Home for Discarded Objects invites people to take a second look at objects that have been left behind outside in our environment. This two-part installation in the UGA Science Library features objects that were found as part of a highway and stream cleanup of Barnett Shoals Road in Athens and Tanyard Creek on the UGA campus. Participants are invited to "adopt" an object by filling out a birth certificate and imagining a story, name, and date of birth. The installation features some of the objects and their stories from the adoption event held during Sustainable UGA's Zero Waste Extravaganza in February 2017, displayed with original prints by Abigail West and a handmade book by Kira Hegeman.

Kira Hegeman and Abigail West are both students in the Lamar Dodd School of Art and interns in the UGA Office of Sustainability. They hope to encourage people to think about the full life cycles of the objects we use and so often quickly forget about, with the goal of promoting mindfulness and reuse in a culture of consumption and consumerism.

Kira Hegeman

Kira Hegeman is a doctoral student in Art Education with a focus on arts-based research, informal sites of learning, and socially-engaged art. Kira came to Art Education on a non-traditional path. Central to her life and career aspirations was exploring the world and learning about its many cultures. Upon completion of her undergraduate studies in comparative religion and Russian at the University of Vermont, Kira moved to Thailand, where she lived for almost five years.

While in Thailand, Hegeman cemented her interests in both education and the arts. She worked as a facilitator of experiential education programs for visiting school groups from around the world—a position that not only allowed her to travel the country, but to also witness the benefits of hands-on and multidisciplinary education. Hegeman also served as the Art Director for Art Relief International, a Thailand-based organization devoted to empowerment and community-building through the arts.

Hegeman's studies at the University of Georgia focus on studio practice, arts-based research, alternative arts education, and community development, with a central focus on public art and pedagogy. Continually inspired by the power of creative expression to promote communication, confidence, and group cohesion, Kira's research interests include the role of interactivity, public space, and collaborative art making in fostering conversation across diverse social lines. Kira works as both an artist and educator, striving to create visual works that invite participants to collaborate in the art making process through storytelling, public workshops, or interactive elements.

In addition to scholarly pursuits, Hegeman has received grants to support community-based art projects. Most recently, she collaborated with a fellow art educator to develop a participatory installation for Art on the Atlanta Beltline, a temporary Public Art Festival held annually on the Atlanta Beltline. The project invited members of the Atlanta community to participate in free ceramics workshops in a public park. The pieces they built in the workshop were then fired and installed collectively on the Beltline, playfully immersed in nooks and crannies of the Interim Eastside Trail, inviting participants to discover their work in a new environment and share in a collective installation. Additionally, she received a Willson Center for Humanities and Arts grant to complete a kinetic, interactive installation of moveable sculptures, and an Athens Cultural Affairs Commission Grant to build a community clay oven with the Pinewoods Mobile Home Community in Athens, GA, in collaboration with Chris McDowell. Kira is also excited to have had her design chosen as one of the 18 holes at Can Can Wonderland, a permanent art miniature golf course in St.Paul, Minnesota.