LEWISTON, N.Y. — Students takeover original creations from the Artpark archives for a journey through history and art of the beginning generations.
On Thursday from 6 p.m. until 8 p.m., Lewiston-Porter students will be part of the opening of the LEVEL Art Gallery exhibit called "With Love, Artpark Archives of 1976."
The students hand in the art that will be displayed is completely curated by them which will bring past creations from 1976 back to life. The Lewiston Porter Gallery Project students were able to access the archives donated by Artpark & Company to the Burchfield Penney Art Center to be exhibited.
Part of and aside from curating the projects, students also developed their own exhibition thesis, used a finding aid processed by archivists, and chose between 70,000 of the images and textual records that was previously prepared for eight years.
After their process of making these discoveries some students like, Alyssa Crewe said they felt like this was a transformative experience.
“It was very different, it felt that you were looking back in the past and could feel what it was like in the 1970's,” Crewe said.
“I didn’t really know what to expect. I thought it was really cool to go through slides, negatives and see how it is really old but still in good condition. I didn’t know archival work was a thing, it was cool to see the actual work of an art related field.” Elijah Veltri said.
Director of Marketing and Sales at Artpark, Andy Dulski, says that the students have been on a journey learning about the history of Artpark.
"Their journey back through time began with learning about The Artpark Idea, from the time of its inception in 1974, and the ethos of the Artists working there," Dulski said.