dialogical art

Today's post desperately needs to be about community-based art projects. The genre is also known as dialogical art because of its focus on a dialogue between an artist and a community in a way that transforms artworks mid-process. (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Community_art)

I first became interested in community art when I was working at Carnegie Mellon University where the MFA program required students to complete a "community-based art project" while in the program. Required reading for the students was Mapping the Terrain by Suzanne Lacy, and Lacy was on Carnegie Mellon's School of Art's board and helped to develop the school's curriculum..

Owen Mundy and I just created a community art project in York, Alabama during an artist residency at the Coleman Art Center. http://colemanarts.org/2005/artists_Owen_Mundy-Joelle_Dietrick.php

I bring all of these topics up because it relates to your understanding of the Female Expat Project. Yes, I intend to use your stories of life overseas to inspire more traditional forms of art—drawings, paintings, videos, etc.—but I also think of the Female Expat Project as an art project in itself. Its especially beautiful to think of we expat women spread out throughout the world, with a tendency to a nomadic lifestyle that often tweaks our typical understanding of community, being able to come together as a community online. Floating voices and visions, if you will.