Faculty Perspective: Dana Hargrove

October 15, 2007

Assistant Professor of Art Dana Hargrove Traveled to South Africa in August 2007.

I found my time as an artist in residence at Greatmore Studios in Cape Town, South Africa an extremely rewarding experience. I loved having the extended period of time to reflect, absorb my surroundings and cultures and respond to it within my art making. I felt privileged to impart knowledge and ideas while learning from my interactions with the people I met there, through artists within the studios, to the few workshops I did with schools and community centers.

I was able to experience many things during my three month stay, I came to understand the history of Cape Town and how it has shaped its culture of today, still very much a segregated city with the differences between rich and poor all too visible resulting in a high crime rate.

I was able to travel through the countryside north to Grahamstown for the International Arts Festival, one of the largest in the world. I also was able to begin building a relationship with my biological father and my half sister in their home country, an experience that shaped my artworks as they became more personal than previous bodies of work. I was grateful to have been able to share my artworks with the Cape Town community, in an exhibition titled Roots Routes. This was an exhibition of both of the visiting artists, myself and Lesego Moncho from the North West Province of South Africa. We held public talks on our artworks and were delighted to also be interviewed on national public radio SAFM about our exhibition. This can be found as a podcast on my blog along with catalogue for the exhibition, press release and pictures of the event.

The experiences I had there, with the outreach I completed gave me a sample of how rewarding service learning can be. I conducted several workshops in schools and community centers one of which was to teach a variety of life skills to a pool of deserving children who had been victims of broken homes (alcoholism, abuse sexual and physical etc). This was organized through Greatmore Studios and the South African Police. I worked with a small group of children at the Woodstock Community Learning Center to create collage artworks from leftover magazines donated by the community. Rollin's Critchfield grant made this experience, including outreach and exhibition possible.

I paid visits to two universities as possible study abroad locations for Rollins students.touring the University facilities, accommodation and art departments. I can now help advise students and the International Programs office on the locations Stellenbosch University and University of Cape Town as well as their surrounding community and safety issues within the respective cities.

- Dana Hargrove

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