Center for the Humanities

In 2020, Benjamin Gardner (Art and Design) wrapped up his third year as the Humanities Research Scholar. Below we share updates and images from the project that was supported.

"My time as a Center for Humanities Research Scholar was incredibly productive and helped me realize some important aspects of my studio practice—the major one being that I am interested in making art works that can be experienced by individuals outside of a gallery or museum exhibition. I spent a good amount of time as a child listening to music and records with headphones and I’ve been developing projects that recreate similar, intimate experiences. My research and artwork as a Research Scholar culminated in a read-along book titled The Cabin.
 
The Cabin is based off of read-along books that I grew up with that were printed books that came with a record with an audio soundtrack and a narrator reading the text of the book. It really expanded my studio practice in that I wrote the short story, created illustrations for the book, designed the layout of the book, composed the soundtrack, and produced the audio recording that was engraved on a 7” record in collaboration with Haunted Birthday Records out of Atlanta, Georgia.
 
As others have done with the old Gremlins read-along books that I listened to as a child, I created a video-based version of the book that you can find on Vimeo here (password is: inthewoods). I have copies of the The Cabin available; if you are interested contact me at Benjamin.gardner@drake.edu.
 
This award has been very significant for me and has been crucial to my development as a scholar and artist, I am grateful to the Center for Humanities for the support!"

The Cabin, inside cover:

The Cabin, first page: