Artwork by UGA undergraduate student Jack Deese and recent graduate Mark Vaughan is now permanently displayed in the hallways of the Southeast Georgia Health System medical facility in Brunswick.
In April, the president and CEO of the Southeast Georgia Health System, Gary Colberg, who is also on the UGA Archway Partnership’s Glynn County executive committee, hosted the first local exhibit of works from Georgia Gaze, a Lamar Dodd School of Art service-learning photography course sponsored by the Archway Partnership, a UGA unit that is jointly supported by the Office of the Vice President for Public Service and Outreach and Cooperative Extension. The Georgia Gaze course, taught by associate professor Michael Marshall, included 12 undergraduate and graduate photography students. Two students were assigned to each of the eight Archway communities, with some of the students working in two communities. Their assignment was to visit their assigned Archway community, interact with its members and capture in photographs the distinctive characteristics of the community.
On hand at the exhibit’s opening reception were Archway executive committee members, Southeast Georgia Health System staff members, other community members, and Deese and Vaughan, the only two students assigned to Glynn County. At the close of the exhibit in late April, some 90 of Deese and
Vaughan’s works were placed on permanent display throughout the hospital. The photographs featured scenes from across Glynn County.
“Georgia Gaze provides a unique platform for faculty and students to work throughout the state of Georgia in communities to apply lessons from the classroom in real time, where they can receive instant feedback,” said Matt Bishop, Archway Partnership operations coordinator. The project provides the communities access to acquiring works of art that can be used to promote their communities.
“The most valuable thing is that students saw and experienced a side of Georgia that they never would have without this project,” said Asen Kirin, Lamar Dodd School of Art associate director and liaison between the art school and the Archway Partnership.
“We learned a lot about client-artist relations, legal jargon and the history of the area. We learned even more about taking initiative, and doing what we felt needed to be done,” said Vaughan, who graduated in May with a bachelor of arts degree.
