Exhibitions

WideOpen: Excellence in Photography

On view: January 17 – March 16, 2025, Wednesdays through Sundays, 12:00-5:00 pm.

Over the years, the Women of Appalachia Project Fine Art Exhibition has presented remarkable pieces from established, emerging, and amateur artists. For the 2025 biennale, a distinguished jury chose artwork across various mediums, to create an exhibition that showcases Appalachian women. This show, held biennially, is organized by The Dairy Barn Arts Center in collaboration with the Women of Appalachia Project.

The opening reception will occur on Friday, January 17th from 6-8pm and is FREE and open to the public!

Admissions
Adults: $10
Children: $5
Children under 3 Free
Members Always Free

Race, Class, and the Blue Collar
by Kyle & Kelly Phelps

On View: December 21, 10:00 am – 12:00 pm

Artist Statement:  

I’m an interactive artist with a mission to create situations that foster and reward curiosity. I prioritize Universal Design in my work, hoping all people—regardless of age, height, background, or accessibility situation—can engage meaningfully. I see art as existing within situations rather than the physical artwork itself, coming alive through curious exploration. It’s a little of this curiosity I hope people will take away with them. 

I aim to create work with communities rather than for them, seeing people as integral to the medium itself, both as catalysts to the artwork and collaborators in development. This goal is achieved through a robust prototyping process. 

Prototyping involves publicly testing work at multiple stages of development. This results in more responsive and universally engaging experiences. It allows the artist to challenge assumptions of how people might engage. With luck, it becomes an exercise in discovering and addressing personal biases. 

Great interactive art integrates community interaction not only into the final work but throughout the entire process. This enriches the artwork with input from a wider diversity of people. All of this testing and exploration adds up to a joyful form of collaboration. 

Prototyping, on its surface, is a process to create better and more inclusive artwork. More deeply, it’s a process to create a better and more inclusive artist.

Access Projects

Interactive art exploring modes of accessible communication (braille, sign language, etc.) and universal design as the artwork medium. 

Artworks include:

Speech-to-Text-to-Sign-to-Song-to-Art-to-Touch  

Balloon Song

Magnetic Braille

Braille Poetics

Recent Works

by Mark Hackworth & Patty Mitchell

On view: October 4 – November 24, 2024, Wednesdays through Sundays, 12:00-5:00pm.

SEEING LIGHT

Athens Photographic Project’s Biennial Group Exhibition

On View: October 2 – October 11

Athens Photographic Project (APP) proudly presents Seeing Light, an exhibition of new work from the artists who participated in the APP 2023-2024 photography classes and social enterprise program. This exhibition inspires new perspectives on a familiar landscape and shines light on recovery.