Wide West

WIDE WEST is an art-project for cultural exchange between foreign and local artists in cooperation with the Burghauptmannschaft of Austria, the ceramic association IKSIT and schools in Innsbruck.

WIDE WEST is equivalent to a synonym for a NEW WORLD. NEW WORLD represents terms such as movement, awakening, propagation, hope, immigration, settlement and a new homeland, responsible handling with resources, development and effects of the affluent society, richness, poorness, environmental arrangement.

Leaving one’s homeland and familiar surroundings, whether forced or voluntarily, triggers a letting go of the past and of familiar and well-known situations. It forces us to challenge our prejudice and tradition, to select material and spiritual goods, which are worth to being taken over. It claims to open us for something new. The search for a new homeland – a new world – also creates unimagined scope and possibilities. Old cultures meet new cultures and expand the multi-facetted wealth of art even further.

Exposed
In a boat at night
I pushed
And pushed along a bank (…)
Nothing was certain
There was only wonder (…)
A stranger, gone mute before unopened realms,
I froze through the grim years.
I chose love to be my homeland
(Mascha Kaléko, a poet who was forced to emigrate from Berlin to New York with her husband in 1938)

ELISABETH MELKONAYN, GABRIELA NEPO-STIELDORF and MICHAEL ENGELE, as well as artists living in Paducah (Kentucky, U.S.A.) initiate this project. FREDA FAIRCHILD, JOHN HASEGAWA, LILY LIU, PAUL LORENZ, TERI MOORE, MAY WONG

During the Project WIDE WEST the artist will exhibit their works in the Foyer of the Imperial Palace in Innsbruck for 14 days in April 2013. The artists of Paducah will be offering workshops in the fields of painting, graphics, graphic prints, textile arts and ceramics in April 2013 for pupils in several schools. The resulting works of the students will be shown in the second half of April 2013 in the Foyer of the Imperial Palace of Innsbruck. KATH. BAKIP, KOLLEG, BORG Innsbruck, Neue Mittelschule Müllerstraße, KORG Innsbruck, Neue Mittelschule Kettenbrücke.

Artists WIDE WEST I: FREDA FAIRCHILD (USA), JOHN HASEGAWA (JAPAN), LILY LIU (CHINA), PAUL LORENZ (USA), TERI MOORE (USA), MAY WONG (CHINA) AUSTRIA: ELISABETH EHART-DAVIES, MICHAEL ENGELE, ELISABETH MELKONYAN, IRENE MOLYNEUX, GABRIELA NEPO-STIELDORF, GABRIELA PROKSCH, BEATRIX WEGER

Wide West - Work of artists

Wide West - Work of students

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