Public art — from murals to yard signs — is used more during times of political unrest.
The Project Shop in Carbondale provides hands-on art education and doubles as a production facility with free screen printing.
Reina Katzenberger is the founder.
She spoke with Aspen Public Radio’s Regan Mertz about how her nonprofit has focused more on social justice in recent years.
The conversation below has been edited for clarity and length.
Regan Mertz: Could you talk to me about how The Project Shop came to be?
Reina Katzenberger: I grew up in the Roaring Fork Valley, and left, and then came back. [I] was really looking at what I would want to have found in my young adult years, as far as an organization or a facility.
So, having a lot of equipment myself, [and] knowing that print making equipment is often pretty inaccessible — it’s heavy, it's large, it's ancient — [I wanted] to have that stuff somewhere that was safe and accessible for people to come learn and to use themselves.
What ended up happening was students came. They had something very true to their heart that they wanted to express.
Mertz: Did you always have this activism piece, or was that work started more recently in your time with The Project Shop?
Katzenberger: I think it moved to the forefront because the students that were coming and wanting to express an idea, mostly really landed in a kind of social justice realm. And also, in defending something that they really care about, or standing up for something that they really care about, I think it is naturally what people want to do given the opportunity.
So, for my role, of really supporting them and encouraging people to feel not only that their voice is valid, but that they are supported in expressing it in a beautiful way, and that does make a difference.
Mertz: How do you think art and information sharing, like screen printing, plays a role in democracy?
Katzenberger: You know when you're walking down the street and something catches your eye and it's beautiful and it's something that someone authored or drew or designed? It could be a really cool t-shirt — it could be anything — and it catches your eye. It kind of arrests your breath, and it makes you consider it a little bit more than you would have otherwise. And the power of that, I feel, is pretty universal. You immediately think of something from someone else's perspective. All of a sudden they're engaged, right?
Specifically with printmaking, once movable type was invented between the 12th and 15th century, depending upon what part of the globe you're looking at, the ability to share ideas and disseminate it widely was revolutionary for connection, for sharing knowledge of how to do things better. And I think that persists to this day.
Mertz: What would you say to people that are very cynical, that there's no hope for democracy? Or political demonstrations don't really do anything? Or, art, it doesn't move people?
Katzenberger: I think it's great to be honest about how hard times are right now. Life is complicated. Systems are complicated. Democracy is incredibly complicated, and it needs us standing up and defending it again over the last 150 years. It's a pretty young system, our iteration of it. It has constantly needed defending. In my experience with all these artists and in my life, it is always positive, even if it's painful or even if it's emotional. It always connects people.
Mertz: Are you seeing more and more people becoming engaged? Is there evidence that more and more people are coming together in that way, would you say, in your time that you've been running The Project Shop?
Katzenberger: I think not having an expectation of how people show up is really important, because people have all different things going on. And not making assumptions about what it's supposed to look like, I think is really important.
We had a student, a young person, show up last Saturday. Really dear, very shy, but he showed up, and to me holding space for anyone to feel supported and safe to come and paint a sign or share an idea or have a conversation or just come and sit and not say anything. That all are welcome, and it's all important.
Mertz: Thank you so much for coming in today.
Katzenberger: Totally. I really appreciate it.
Support for this Nonprofit Spotlight series comes from the Aspen Community Foundation.
