M12
Address: 350 W. Front St., Byers, Colorado 80103
Contact/Email: Kirsten Stoltz – Kirsten@M12studio.org or Richard Saxton – Richard@M12studio.org
Website: www.M12studio.org
Open Hours: Fridays 9am to 5pm, first Saturday of the month, and by appointment
How is the project operated?
Non-profit.
How long has it been in existence?
6 years.
What was your motivation?
M12 promotes excellence in art making and design, social and site-based creative practice, landscape interpretation, and agrarian and post-agrarian cultural study in rural environments. We hope that our programmatic offerings will continue building a sustainable cultural model for rural communities.
Number of organizers/responsible persons of the project.
12.
How are programs funded?
Public funding, government funding, sponsorships.
Who is responsible for the programming?
Directors.
Number and average duration of exhibitions/events per year.
Many programs are offered annually so that artists and community partners have choices regarding duration of their projects. Events are often offered seasonally.
What kind of events are usually organized?
Community forums, visiting artist projects and lectures, public art works, student workshops, cultural tours, roundtables, regional socials.
How is your programming determined?
Programs are set by the M12 directors. Programmatic decisions are made by soliciting our network of community advocates, national advisers and international colleagues.
Do you accept proposals/submissions?
Yes, but artists selected for projects are working in site and social-based art practice with a rural focus.
What is your artistic/curatorial approach?
Many of the projects and programs we have developed over the last two years can be described as scenes of engagement—a desire to build experiences and events within a rural community. M12 embraces programmatic, situation-based, site-specific artistic investigations of place and builds an understanding about the value of the neighbor or the local citizen’s experiences. These positions add depth and perspective to the work the organization produces. M12’s artistic intention is for the visitor or participant to encounter a work of art that resonates with their life experience.
What’s working? What’s not working?
The mission of our organization is strong and is starting to be recognized on a larger scale. Like any other non-profit, we have challenges with fully funding the organization.
What kind of role do you hope to play in your local art scene or community?
We want to challenge current and primarily urban-centric conditions of the contemporary art field, and share a rural and regional dialogue to a global audience.
What idea are you most excited about for the future?
Offering our 4th year of programming in the Colorado high plains region and participating in national and international forums about the future of cultural production in rural communities.
Images courtesy of M12.
Sarah Croop is an undergraduate American Culture Studies student at Washington University in St. Louis. Her work explores the intersection between the photographic object, specifically in the vernacular of the family snapshot, and the psychology of memory, and how the interaction between these is changing in the age of digital photography and social media.
