Nudging Utah art beyond Westernalia-Lynda Percival, Salt Lake Tribune How do an anthropologist, a Sanskrit word, dancers, artists
and an old pickle factory come together to make political changes? In February 2002, TRASA - a Sanskrit word loosely meaning "a collective of moving beings" - moved into a 14,000-square-foot space at the historic Pickle Co. building (741 S. 400 W.) in Salt Lake City's granary district. "Our philosophy is activism through art," Robb says. "We're a multidisciplinary arts center, and the whole idea is to provide a nontraditional setting." TRASA was established after study of similar arts organizations around the country, but Robb said it became apparent that Salt Lake City had different needs than cities like San Francisco or New York City. "Working in Utah, we noticed that there are not a lot of professional artists that are creating contemporary work," Robb says. "It's a place for landscape art or Western art. But there wasn't a place . . . where people could actually take risks and do really contemporary things without worrying whether they were going to draw a large audience or whether [their work] was going to be salable." To facilitate that, TRASA offers local artists studio space, money and exhibition areas. "We offer work space, access to equipment, technical assistance, exhibition opportunities, funding - whatever it takes to help them realize more ambitious projects,"Robb says. "People don't have resources, time, energy to work their full-time jobs and do art on the side." TRASA is in the process of raising $40,000 to renovate the first floor of the Pickle Company to build studio space for its artist-in-residence program. The space is scheduled to be finished by July 2007. The collective plans to keep the building open for programs and for artists to use during the renovations. But helping artists find money and space is only part of TRASA's mission; the other is raising community awareness and political activism. One of the first programs TRASA hosted at The Pickle Company was an invitation for graffiti artists to come paint the interior of the building. Robb says the company coupled the graffiti show with a big media blitz in which TRASA held panel discussions. "We did a lot of education on what graffiti is, what purpose it serves and when" it goes wrong, Robb said. TRASA recently screened The New Orleans Project, which is an interactive exhibit by photographer Alice McNamara, poet Melissa Bond and audiographer Beth Hoffman about the three months they spent documenting the ongoing devastation and clean-up in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Although the mission of the organization is to provide artists with the means to take risks, Robb adds, it's not striving to be controversial. "We want to help people . . . push their work in bigger directions, go more professional or create the impetus in order for artists to begin new work. We're sort of an incubator." |