Essay by Dr. Rivera

THE EVERYDAY IN COLORADO (USA)

This artwork is about the “everyday” experience of students at the University of Colorado in Boulder, Colorado (USA).  It was produced applying art theory and practices discussed in Stephen Johnstone’s, textbook entitled THE EVERYDAY – Documents of Contemporary Art. The purpose of this project was to present what the “everyday” was like in American society from their personal perspective. 

All artists were asked to examine their everyday experiences and to select a representative day in their lives.  They were asked to video tape whatever occurred in that day and to use an audio recorder to record sounds from an altogether different part of their day.  Thereafter, they had to edit this material into a sort video/sound art piece that mixed the video with their audio recordings.

Since we are living in a global community, it is incumbent on us to know national others and for people from other countries to know us.  Therefore, the objective of this project was to create an artwork that could be shared with other countries in order to share a lived experience of what it is like to live in the United States. 

This catalogue contains a “still” photograph from each work and to provide an explanation of how the work reflects their everyday experience.

George Rivera, Ph.D.

Curator

University of Colorado

Department of Art & Art History

Boulder, Colorado (USA)

George. rivera@colorado.edu