M. Chapel Projects / SPAACES Presents Truly Valued: Who Am I?

Opening Night Exhibition: January 11, 2019 | Friday 6:00 – 8:00pm

Truly Valued: Who Am I? is a community engaged art project carried out throughout a two-month period. The project includes eight girls, ages thirteen to sixteen from the Sarasota / Bradenton area who are working together to create art around the topics of confidence and identity. Artist and gallery founder, Marianne Chapel and the Executive Director of the nonprofit Truly Valued, Shavonne Simon, collaborate to provide a temporary art studio workshop for the teenage girls. The artworks include large two and three-dimensional pieces, made independently by each girl, with no instruction, and a large collaborative sculptural piece made by Chapel and all eight girls together.

The exhibition also includes a community participatory project where visitors have an opportunity to engage by answering two questions, “Who Am I?” and alternatively “Who was I?” Chapel hopes this project to reveal the inherent similarities all people have when reflecting on their personal development and their current selves. The objective for the contributing and viewing audience is to reflect on similar adolescent experiences with empathy and identification.

Chapel introduces the girls to intuitive art processes and to a wide range of art materials in order to free them from societal expectations and support them in their own artistic personal development. She gives them the opportunity to make unrestricted and nonjudgmental art in a professional but relaxed working art studio. The process includes looking at diverse, contemporary new media artists, slide discussions that include new art vocabulary, positive encouragement, independent decision-making, physical art making, and at the end, an art exhibition for the public to view the work.

Truly Valued “Who Am I” is a socially motivated (the desire to interact with others) community engaged art project. Socially Engaged Art is a meaningful social interaction that proclaims itself as art. The interaction, or the process, is the art. Therefore, socially engaged art is dependent on the involvement of others. Socially engaged artists challenge the art market because there is no object to purchase and the notion of authorship is ambiguous. Socially engaged art takes a topic, such as confidence building within the teenage experience, away from its usual place (a usual place would be a therapeutic, educational, or sociological forum) and configures the topic into the realm of art making in order to call attention to the subject. The process is a representation of an idea.

About Truly Valued:
Truly Valued, Inc. is a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization. Their goal is to create an environment of learning and explorational growth for young ladies to cultivate positive relationships and give back to their local community. Truly Valued, Inc. creates a mentor network partnership with local churches, schools and various organizations to support youth development. Their mission is to provide services to middle and high school girls focused on building self-esteem, confidence and character to promote positive self-image, positively impact educational and career aspirations and improve academic achievement.

About M. Chapel Projects / SPAACES:
Founded in 2018 in Sarasota, Florida, M. Chapel Projects / SPAACES is a visual arts and cultural institution, with a non-profit model, benefiting the Sarasota and surrounding Florida artists, and communities. We offer professional exhibition space specializing in high caliber new forms of contemporary art and community based social practice art. We also aim to offer artist studios for Florida based artists, and collaboration spaces for community based, large scale projects. SPAACES addresses the need for affordable art studios for Sarasota artists and community authored public art, adding a new vision to the Sarasota visual arts landscape and moving Sarasota up the ranks in art tourism.

To sponsor, visit this link: Sponsor a girl