San Diego State University art professor Matthew Hebert has been awarded $20,000 from the San Diego Foundation’s Creative Catalyst Fellowship for his most recent project, “Information Retrieval.”
“This project is larger is scale because there will be 15 file cabinets,” Hebert said. “It is going to be like a baby version of Stonehenge.”
The project, which he began in 2010, consists of solar-powered, kinetic dioramas inside of old filing cabinets. Hebert is using this project to explore what effects information technology has on people’s experience of the natural landscape.
“The art will serve as a portrait of San Diego County,” Hebert said. “Different visions that come together to represent the area.”
The Escondido Art Partnership nominated Hebert for the award and will be working with him to do workshops and showcase his finished project. Wendy Wilson, the executive director of the organization, will help organize the workshops and curate the art galleries featuring Hebert’s work.
“The workshops we will be hosting in Escondido will function as brainstorming sessions,” Hebert said. “The participants will come up with ideas for the interior art, and I will execute the ideas.”
Once Hebert has the public’s ideas for his dioramas, he and a team of SDSU graduate students will bring their ideas to life. He will be using the award to pay for the materials and to pay students to help him build the art pieces.
“Graduate students working with furniture would be involved in helping me,” Hebert said. “It is nice because it is outside of what they would normally do.”
The Creative Catalyst Program
The Fellowship Program is hosted by the San Diego Foundation and provides opportunities for local professional artists to create work to advance their careers while increasing civic engagement within San Diego neighborhoods. The fellowship requires the development of new work that includes community engagement and a culminating exhibition or performance.