5 Blocks Youth Mixed Media Artwork at UMFA

5 Blocks
Youth Mixed Media Artwork

5 Blocks Youth Mixed Media Artwork Showcased at the Utah Museum of Fine Arts.

How do we shape the spaces around us, and how do those spaces shape us? The Utah Museum of Fine Arts (UMFA) is pleased to present 5 Blocks, an exhibition of mixed media artwork by students who examined questions about the built environment. 5 Blocks will be on view through April 21, 2013 in the Emma Eccles Jones Education Gallery at the Utah Museum of Fine Arts, in the Marcia and John Price Museum Building at the University of Utah.

5 Blocks resulted from collaborations between Hawthorne Elementary School in Salt Lake City, Granger High School in West Valley City, and educators from the Utah Museum of Fine Arts. Over the course of the 2012 spring semester, the elementary and high school students explored the history, design, development and future of five-block areas near their schools. Through a variety of media, 5 Blocks communicates what the students discovered when they left the classroom and engaged with their neighborhoods.

Using all five senses, Hawthorne Elementary students discovered past and present stories of a five-block area in Salt Lake City. The students experienced their community as a dynamic place of change and expressed their findings through photography, sketching, sculpture, painting and writing. Visitors to 5 Blocks will encounter a three-dimensional cityscape and collage created by the elementary school students and UMFA educators.

Granger High students focused on a bustling, commercial five-block area in West Valley City. They researched the city’s revitalization efforts, examined the area in terms of design and management, and learned about West Valley City’s General Plan. In response, the students expressed their visions for the future of their neighborhood through digital prints and both wire and ceramic sculpture.

During the planning of 5 Blocks, UMFA educators consulted with Damon Rich, a nationally recognized city planner who currently serves as the Urban Designer for the City of Newark, New Jersey. Rich assisted the UMFA in piloting new curricular approaches to connect the UMFA’s education programs to architecture and planning in Utah.

“This partnership provided a number of wonderful opportunities for my students,” said Andrea Heidinger, teacher at Granger High School. “This project was especially unique because students had a chance to work with and learn from artists and urban planners. The artistic results that came from the community explorations and discussions yielded a rich and diverse range of artwork of which the students can be proud.”

5 Blocks is supported in part by the Utah Arts & Museums, with funding from the State of Utah and the National Endowment for the Arts. Additional support provided by The Williams Foundation. For more information about this exhibition and others coming to the UMFA, visit www.umfa.utah.edu.

Utah Museum of Fine Arts
University of Utah Campus
Marcia & John Price Museum Building
410 Campus Center Dr.
Salt Lake City, Utah 84112

Museum Hours
Tuesday - Friday: 10 am - 5 pm
Wednesday: 10 am - 8 pm
Saturday and Sunday: 11 am - 5 pm
Closed Mondays and holidays


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