Art for Nature: Our James River

Maggie Walker students collaborated with artist R. Stein Wexler to create a multimedia installation about the future of the James River.

The art work was very process-oriented with emphasis on field visits and exploration.

The project is funded by the German Embassy in Washington DC and supported by POCACITO network.

The Maggie Walker chamber orchestra will play music during the opening event which is open to all.

A project within the Art for Nature - Ideas for Our Future series, sponsored by the German Embassy in Washington DC and supported by POCACITO network, a nonprofit organization based in Charlottesville, Virginia.

The starting point for the series was the question:

How can we live healthy and fulfilling lives in the future?

Four schools across the United States each worked with an artist on exploring and probing this question.

In addition to the Maggie Walker Governor’s School, this included Borah High School in Boise, Idaho, Santa Fe Community College in Santa Fe, New Mexico and Vestavia Hills High School in Vestavia / Birmingham, Alabama.

Each school took a very different approach and their works will be published online after the conclusion of the project on https://www.pocacito.org/. 

The students at Maggie Walker picked the James River as their focus. 

The artist R. Stein Wexler (https://www.rsteinwexler.com/) guided their work. 

R. Stein Wexler (she/her) is a public- and installation-artist trained as an urban planner. 

Her projects are research-based, community-engaged, and critical of dominant structures. She creates place-based work in collaboration with local communities to tell hi/stories. Shaped by empathy, listening, and connection, her work results in gatherings, process documentation, immersive and interactive installations, workshops, exhibitions, and policy change. Her work often offers numerous points of entry, be it through sensory experiences, information-sharing, participation in the creation process, or community- and connection-building. The journey to the end of her work is just as important as the final product which often results in social as well as physical infrastructures.

Stein’s art has been supported by Raleigh Arts, the North Carolina Museum of Art, the Berlin Senate for Culture and Social Cohesion, Mitte Museum, Kultur Mitte, CEC ArtsLink, as well as the Duke-Durham Partnership and the Mellon and Z. Smith Reynolds Foundations, among others. Stein was an artist in residence at documenta fifteen in Kassel, Germany and a German Chancellor’s Fellow at Berlin’s Center for Art and Urbanistics (ZK/U). Stein has taught public art at the Hayti Heritage Center and has guest lectured at colleges and universities. 

Stein holds a Master’s in City and Regional Planning from the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill where she received the Parker Fellowship and served as the co-editor in chief of the Carolina Planning Journal. Stein holds a BA with honors in English from University of California, Berkeley.

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