Glassbooks Exhibition Break The Silence For Trauma Survivors, Who Let The Sculptures Speak For Them
Free Public Exhibition at Rutgers’ Paul Robeson Galleries, Newark, through July 27
They don’t make a sound, but dozens of glass sculptures at Rutgers University, Newark, have a lot to say about some provocative issues, ranging from self-injury and domestic violence to advocacy for victims and the need to find peace.
“Din of Murmurs: Nick Kline and the GlassBook Project” opened May 26 at the Paul Robeson Galleries, its first stop on a tour of well-known art institutions that will include The Grounds for Sculpture in Hamilton, New Jersey. The exhibition features 46 sculptures, or glass books, drawn from seven collections of the GlassBook Project, sculptures that aim to help build understanding of different human responses to trauma. The project brings together students with survivors, who share their trauma experience and explain how certain behaviors, such as self injury, eating disorders, aggression and substance abuse, helped them cope.
“Din of Murmurs” will be on display through July 27. The June 4 opening reception, from 2-4 p.m., will include poetry readings and a panel discussion with students and participants from the various GlassBook collections. The galleries are in the Paul Robeson Campus Center, 350 Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd., Newark. Hours are 10 a.m – 5 p.m., Mon. – Thursday, and June 4 from noon – 5 p.m. For gallery information: 973 353 1610, galleryr@andromeda.rutgers.edu, or http://andromeda.rutgers.edu/artgallery/
The exhibition also features abstract photographs of the GlassBooks taken by Kline, a Rutgers University, Newark, professor and artist. The GlassBooks Project is a creation of Kline’s, in collaboration with Helga Luest of Witness Justice, a national nonprofit organization that provides support and advocacy for victims of violence and trauma. Other professional artists are brought in as specialists to work with students in creating collections, including Rutgers professor Keary Rosen, and book artist Sarah Stengle.
Among the sculptures featured at Robeson Galleries are works from the initial GlassBooks project — created in 2009 by some of Kline’s Rutgers-Newark students in collaboration with trauma survivors and mental health experts – and a large-scale book, “Finding Peace,” created this spring by students from Newark’s South 17th Street School who were mentored by Rutgers students in the MCJ Housing Scholars program. “Finding Peace” was previously exhibited at the Newark Peace Education Summit and at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ National Children’s Mental Health Awareness Day event in Washington, D.C.
For more information about “Din of Murmurs,” please contact Nick Kline, 973/353- 5600, and Helga Luest, 301/846-9110. For more information about the GlassBook project, see http://www.glassbookproject.org/ and http://www.witnessjustice.org
