Undergraduate Research & Scholarships

Jacob Li Rosenberg L&S Arts & Humanities

Reorienting the Art Gallery: Service Labor and Community Care

What are the purposes, possibilities, and limitations of the traditional gallery space? Through understanding who has been excluded from the gallery, we aim to rethink what an exhibition space can and should be. Through our research, we will stage our own space on campus that subverts gallery conventions. We will present an alternative functionality, proposing that the gallery space should offer tangible assets to its community. Our work is a collaborative art project situated in the history of service labor, endurance art performances, gallery culture, and the history of subversive art spaces. The summer research will culminate as an artist booklet to accompany our thesis exhibition in Fall 2022: we will stage an alternative gallery on and around the UC campus in service of the local community. Our installation will center the act of cleaning community members’ dirty laundry, using the exhibition as a form of service to the local community.

Message To Sponsor

Thank you for supporting our summer research! We are grateful to have the opportunity to pursue this ambitious project over the coming months. As artists and students, support of this kind is crucial to realize work of this scale and impact.