Accessibility2007 Sustainability
Accessibility2007 Sustainability will focus on the use of found or recycled materials to create site-specific installation art. Selected artists will be invited for a 2 week residency, meals, lodging, and small honorarium included, to created work in and around the grounds of the Sumter County Cultural Commission. The ten artists chosen will be working in a public forum in the Sumter community for the duration of the residency, providing many unique opportunities for the public to gain insight into the 'process' of sculpture and for social interaction with the visiting artists. The Curator for this years Accessibility is Mark Mcleod, Assistant Director and Curator of the Sumter County Gallery of Art.
The Accessibility project has its roots in the "Fall for the Arts" festival formerly hosted by the Sumter County Cultural Commission. In 1998, Cultural Commission volunteer Peggy Chilcutt organized Eve a la Carte, Sumter's first installation project, which focused on the grocery cart—both as medium and statement on its place in our lives. Intrigued and curious members of the public attended the opening at Patriot Hall and came away with an awakened sense of the installation as an art form. Since that time, the annual project, re-dubbed "Accessibility" in 2000, has featured the work of more than 114 artists from around the world and has received recognition throughout the Southeastern US as one of the most important art "happenings" in the region.
Martha Greenway, executive director of the Sumter County Cultural Commission and a previous project director for Accessibility, described the impact of the series to the Columbia Free Times in 2004: "Installation art is confrontational in a friendly way. You can hardly ignore it. It might just make [someone] look at things a little different, even if they just scratch their head and say, 'What…is that?'" Three-dimensional, interactive and engaging all five senses, Sumter's Accessibility project has been a statewide pioneer in bringing this challenging and thought-provoking form to the venue of public art.