Trisha Oralie Martin, 29, InterArts Book and Paper MFA alumna and Bridgeport resident, is taking her artistry and community activism to Uptown. Martin just received the Uptown Arts Center artist residency, part of the Ten Thousand Ripples project, where she will lead four workshops with community groups and residents that will culminate in the creation of a sculptural book. Martin’s work focuses on community and environmental issues, and the sculpture project will be designed and built using a combination of found materials and recycled handmade paper.

Colette Adams, Uptown Arts Center director and curator, was excited to note that the project will also feature participants venturing into the neighborhood to create “impromptu books.” “This is a real creation by people in the neighborhood — for people in the neighborhood,” Adams said. Other workshops will include lessons on papermaking, designing and creating sculptural books.

The idea behind Martin’s project proposal was to get participants to write about themselves and talk about their friends, family, and the neighborhood to tap into a spirit of interconnectedness. Adams said Martin was chosen because “she was going to do something a little bit more unusual in terms of the general public view of art, because her specialty is paper and bookmaking.” Martin is experienced working with communities to create art that highlights local problems. Her 2012 Columbia College InterArts MFA thesis exhibition installation, Breathing in City Clouds, featured Bridgeport youth creating multi-media works about the effects of coal-fired power plants in the community.
The goal of that project, she wrote, was to foster “art as action” where people “create art to communicate an issue that is important to the community.”

An exhibition of the art efforts is scheduled for early May at the arts center.
For more information on the project, click here. Photos courtesy of the artist.