Input/Output: The Art of Visual Data Making

AAWS & Forsyth Futures team up to present an innovative exhibition!


Associated Artists and Forsyth Futures have received an Innovative Project Grant from the Arts Council of Winston-Salem and Forsyth County to present Input/Output: The Art of Visual Data Making. Forsyth County artists will use creative data visualization to illuminate significant issues facing Winston-Salem/Forsyth County residents. The resulting juried exhibition will be on view in the AAWS Gallery in June and July 2012, and will then travel to two other venues.

Creative data visualization is the use of creative means, such as drawing, to explain data in a way that is easy to understand. Increasingly, creative data visualization is used to convey statistics and analysis. Artistic images can make data more accessible to the public, show that it is more than just numbers, and fuel community conversations.

Forsyth County artists are invited to submit artwork interpreting one or more of the top 10 issues residents face, according to Forsyth Futures’ recent Making Progress Report. This report addresses Forsyth County residents’ economic self-sufficiency, engagement in their community, educational success, mental and physical health, and safety. Artists are invited to attend one of two Community Conversations in the AAWS Gallery (Tuesday, February 7, 5:30 – 6:30 pm and Saturday, February 11, 11am - 12 pm), during which Forsyth Futures staff will distribute and discuss the Making Progress Report and AAWS staff will describe the artistic data visualization process and answer questions about the competition and exhibition opportunity. The prospectus will be posted soon on the AAWS website.

This project was made possible, in part, with funding by The Arts Council of Winston-Salem and Forsyth County and the North Carolina Arts Council, an agency of the Department of Cultural Resources, and the National Endowment for the Arts, which believes that a great nation deserves great art.