Army man teapot. Photo by Diana Rajchel.
The Viva City Family Housing Fund invitational puts on display in the Minneapolis Central library what home can mean to a teenager. Artwork produced from Twin Cities students ranging from age 12 to age 18 opens the door to not just what home means to teenagers across the city, but gives some insight into what area kids expect of their homes. One student will be awarded a grand prize of a scholarship for postsecondary schooling.
While one image simply expresses a wish for a safe place, another has a fireplace in the image with family and home written on either side - and then features an Eddie Bauer catalog on the floor along with other branded catalogs. As the students age their views of what home means become more complex and that appears in their artwork. One piece in particular was a teapot with an guerilla firing out of the top, clearly defining "home" as an embattled environment, to be protected but also causing its own sort of strain.
Minneapolis has its shared of troubled homes, homelessness and social issues - and part of that share involves the youth that live there who have little say in how they live or why they live the way they do. Giving children a place to comment visually in art and poetry on home and their home lives issues a quiet but powerful statement: just because they're children doesn't mean they don't know. Just because they're teenagers doesn't mean they don't have their own thoughts on the values and decisions of the adults around them. The Family Housing Fund's goal is to create affordable rental housing and homeownership throughout the Twin Cities; by inviting adolescents to issue their own creative views of their home conditions and needs the managers of the fund get a visual expression of housing issues in a way that dry reports never can.
Wishes for home at Viva City exhibit. Photo by Diana Rajchel.
The exhibit runs until May 12; the Cargill gallery is accessible on the second floor of the Central library and is open during library hours.
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