Professor’s interactive art piece on display at international exhibition

Elena Bertozzi's interactive art piece exploring the words of civil rights activist Rosa Parks is on display now at an art exhibition in Vienna, Austria. She is one of more than 300 artists from around the world exhibiting work at the annual event that runs through May 30.

“Colored: Rosa Parks and the Demise of Jim Crow” was written and produced by Bertozzi, an assistant professor of media arts and game development at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater.

“Colored” incorporates posters about Rosa Parks created by letterpress printer Amos Paul Kennedy Jr., audio composed by Jeff Herriot, a UW-Whitewater associate professor of music and communication, and graphic design by recent UW-Whitewater graduate Celina Lambert.

The piece is narrated by Debra Harris and John Oliver of Alabama, where the famous Montgomery bus boycott involving Parks occurred more than 50 years ago. Harris and Oliver recount the boycott and also read the texts of the Jim Crow laws.

Bertozzi said “Colored” has sparked a lot of discussion since its May 16 debut in Vienna.

“People here didn’t know about Jim Crow laws or about the importance of female activists like Rosa Parks in the civil rights movement, so we have had really interesting conversations,” she said.

To view “Colored: Rosa Parks and the Demise of Jim Crow,” go to: http://facstaff.uww.edu/bertozze/rosa/

In addition to the exhibition, Bertozzi will visit the University of Applied Arts in Vienna to give a lecture about the lack of women in technologically complex fields and teach two seminars on video game development and the link between play and art.

“I am meeting a lot of fascinating people,” Bertozzi said. “It is very interesting to see the work of other artists and talk about how art changes people. There are many ideas for collaborations and future interactions. We have already been invited back for next year’s event.”