Craft Lake City, Utah Humanities, The Center for the Living City and The Temporary Museum of Permanent Change are tremendously pleased to announce a vibrant new Celebration of the Hand public art exhibition. On view from February-April 2022, Celebration of the Hand: Faces of Creativity showcases the faces behind Utah’s diverse arts scene while inspiring viewers to apply to be part of the 14th Annual Craft Lake City DIY Festival (happening August 2022). Craft Lake City commissioned 14 Utah-based DIY Fest alumni to create self-portraits to display in a series of large streetside posters in downtown Salt Lake City. Spotlighting local talent is what Craft Lake City is all about, and as part of our mission statement to elevate the Utah creative community we are taking this opportunity to champion the creative individuals behind the work they create!
From ethereal photography to geometric illustration, and psychedelic collage to charming and whimsical caricatures, Celebration of the Hand: Faces of Creativity endeavors to showcase the diverse faces of Utah’s artistic makers-and-shakers. All of our contributing artists are former DIY Fest vendors and this exhibition, tied together with Craft Lake City’s color palette, encapsulates their unique artistic styles, collectively utilizing a wide range of media including 35mm film photography, digital collage, caricature art, and illustration. Artists were also encouraged to incorporate additional motifs to represent themselves and their making process, for example the tools they use to create their art or the thought processes they experience while in their creative flow. This range of artistic styles pays homage to the wide breadth of participation that is featured at the DIY Fest, Utah’s largest local-centric art, music, science and technology festival. The DIY Fest features hundreds of local artisans, vintage vendors, foodies, youth entrepreneurs, performers, & STEM exhibitors over three days the second weekend of August.
If you have walked or driven along Broadway (300 South) in Salt Lake City, you may have noticed some steel frames, or plakats (the German word for billboard), lining the sidewalks. These plakats are the platform for Craft Lake City’s outdoor exhibit, Celebration of the Hand.
The Center for the Living City, in collaboration with Craft Lake City and The Temporary Museum of Permanent Change, curates this rotating outdoor art exhibition for the Salt Lake community. The exhibits feature visually inspiring and interactive artwork meant to engage viewers and passersby, and provide the local artisan community a venue to showcase their talent and contribute to the city’s cultural enhancement. The artisans build upon Jane Jacobs’ ideas of self-organized city planning in their work, as they design opportunities for animating the evolving cultural district of downtown Salt Lake City. The exhibit allows the public a first-hand experience of Jane Jacobs’ vision of self-organized urbanism as the plakat artisans contribute to the city landscape and essentially become city builders themselves. If you are interested in learning more about Jane Jacobs’ work, visit the Center for the Living City’s website: http://centerforthelivingcity.org/.
The plakats are installed adjacent to the sidewalks in downtown Salt Lake City, and are located on the North and South sides of Broadway (300 South) between 200 West and 200 East. The exhibit is open to the public 24 hours a day 7 days a week from February – April 2022, and is free of charge.