USF Contemporary Art Museum Presents Breaking Barriers Photography Workshop for Veterans
Monday, June 17, 2019
This summer, the USF Contemporary Art Museum, part of the Institute for Research in
Art in the College of The Arts, will offer Breaking Barriers, an intensive five week
photography workshop for military veterans. The course will be focused on memory,
and led by photographer and educator Forrest MacDonald.
Breaking Barriers is an initiative to expand access to the arts for military personnel,
veterans, and their families. Breaking Barriers will give veterans the opportunity
to have a voice through art making, and interface and integrate with both the local
civilian and larger veteran communities.
The workshop, held at the School of Art and Art History at USF, will meet Fridays,
1–5pm, July 12 – August 9, 2019. Breaking Barriers is free to veterans, and no previous
experience is required.
Poster for Breaking Barriers workshop.
Designed for all levels of experience, beginning to advanced, Breaking Barriers invites
veterans to explore tools and process in creating their own photographic images. Guided
by Forrest MacDonald, participants will work in the studio, digital lab and environmental
settings. The series concludes with a personal project and portfolio review, an exclusive
VTS museum session, and a special showing of selected works from each participant
will be exhibited and open to the public at the USF Contemporary Art Museum in fall
2019.
Forrest MacDonald is a photographer, painter, sculptor, mixed media artist, college
professor, and active member of the artist collective Fountain of Pythons. His personal
work involves themes of interdependence of mutually dependent life forms, the transitory
nature of existence, and the re-purposing of personal obsolete technologies into sculptures.
He received his MFA in photography from the University of South Florida in 2012.
USF Contemporary Art Museum is pleased to provide Breaking Barriers arts programming
to military veterans, in partnership with the USF School of Art and Art History. The
USF programming is offered free of charge to all USF veteran students, staff and alumni—and
veterans throughout our community.
For more information, email Leslie Elsasser at lelsasse@usf.edu or Kristin Beauvois
at kbeauvois@usf.edu. You can also visit the Breaking Barriers page on the USF Institute for Research in Art website.