Britannia Community Elementary

The theme for the 2020/21 AIRS residency at Britannia Community Elementary is Sharing our Voices. Through the project, each student artist is invited to share their unique perspective in the form of a relief printmaking plate that tells a story, explains who they are or shares a wish that is then installed in the shared spaces within the school. Taking our inspiration from street artists like Banksy and Invader, some installations are easily seen; while others hide and take a little more effort to find, turning the project into an exercise in simultaneous inclusion and exclusivity within the school community. 

An unforeseen, but welcome, aspect of the project is the temporariness of the installation. Street art in public spaces is by nature temporary in most cases. Left to the elements, artists are aware of the possibility of the work being destroyed, altered or removed. The installations within the school are also open to being tampered with or erased without notice, often within a week of installation due to deep cleaning practices on high touch surface areas in keeping with public health and safety measures. Each installed stamp becomes a message hidden or out in the open which everyone in the school community is welcome to search for and bring their own unique perspectives and experiences to the interpretation of the art installed. Outsiders can experience the installation in its current iteration, but won’t know where to look for every aspect of the project or have a memory of the parts that have been removed from the environment. 

Adding a more permanent aspect to the project, the public installation was supported by each division’s creation of a multi-plate print that included each participant's stamp on tissue paper. Each cohort then added a mark to a banner sized paper to create the look and feel of a wall of graffiti. The final piece has the multi-plate prints collaged overtop of the graffiti banner.