Adam served as Education Director at AVA Gallery and Art Center in Lebanon, NH from 2008–2016. These social practice pieces were coordinated as part of AVA’s curriculum during that time. Seen together, these projects articulate an essential network of local relationships. The projects unite artists; art teachers; art students; youths, teens, adults, and seniors; nonprofits; for profits; the public and private education systems; local farms and agriculture; public transportation; health, wellness, and aging organizations; the largest hospital in the region; the media; the municipal government; and the National Park system — all in the spirit of participatory art-making.

Art can be more than an object for sale on a gallery wall. Click the photos below to learn more about each project.

Of note, these community-based artworks took place during the depths of the Great Recession and the years shortly thereafter — a unique period in nonprofit arts administration. When the markets crashed, arts foundations’ principal contracted with them. And the few grant resources available for community projects disappeared. Nimble arts organizations innovated by creating new partnerships across market segments, combining interests to achieve larger ambitions than any single organization could accomplish alone. The collaborations brought people together through a passion for making, and in doing so, fostered a renewed sense of community and a local pride of place. The artworks produced in these projects were often ephemeral by design, emphasizing playful relationships and art-making over the resultant physical outcomes.

Please click around. You are invited to take these project ideas and try them where you live. If you are interested in learning how these projects were funded, email Adam for more information.

A selection of the projects below have been recognized by the New Hampshire State Council on the Arts, the Vermont Arts Council, and the New England Foundation for the Arts.