Project Girl

Body Tracing, Alexandra (age 14), acrylic & collage, 2006

A Multimedia Exhibition & Guide to Un-Mediafying Your Life

June 6—August 15, 2008

This summer, visit Intermedia Arts to experience Project Girl, the nationally touring visual arts exhibition and series of hands-on art-based events and workshops designed to equip girls with the tools to create the foundation for long-term change. Project Girl develops and strengthens skills they need to become more critical and informed consumers of media. Co-created by Kelly Parks Snider and Jane Bartell, this program uses art-based workshops to build girl communities supporting resistance to harmful media messages. In addition to visual, literary, digital and video artwork by professional artists, the exhibition includes some amazing artwork by Project Girl adolescent artists who were guided during each media deconstruction workshop to express their own interpretations of media messages. Starting in July, multimedia work created in partnership with the Walker Arts Center Teens Arts Council, The Emily Program and from individual girls around the Twin Cities will also be on display in our Sandy Agustín Gallery.

Opening night for this exhibition features nationally-recognized keynote speaker Lyn Mikel Brown, Ed. D., along with excellent networking opportunities for those interested in media reform, the arts and youth empowerment. A summer camp at Intermedia Arts will be offered for adolescent girls in partnership with Girls Scouts of Minnesota featuring the Project Girl media literacy curriculum. A Project Girl art-based media literacy curriculum training opportunity will also be made available in partnership with Perpich Center for Arts Education. This June 24th training conference is available to educators, parents, artists, activists, policy makers, girl group leaders, and concerned individuals who wish to help educate girls to help understand the challenges resulting from the transformation of children into America's number one marketing demographic.

Project Girl believes that it is not the girls, but rather the culture in which they live that is in need of repair and that art is the tool to begin the transformation.