WATERVILLE CREATES - June 20-December 15, 2023

Waterville Creates believes that the arts have power—the power to strengthen community bonds, drive a robust local economy, and enrich lives through creative expression. We believe art and culture are vital to a vibrant community and a prosperous city—the future we want for Waterville. Waterville Creates and artist Tanja Hollander are photographing your objects on-site and gathering your stories through a series of collection station events.

What is ephemera? Historically, the word ephemera is used to describe paper objects with no monetary value meant to be discarded, such as ticket stubs, posters and cards. Here the definition is expanded to include the broken watches of deceased family members, baby teeth, moments in history, mementos from vacation or a subway ride-all simple reminders of people we love and homages to lived experiences.

The Ephemera Project is a crowd-sourced archive of personal objects and stories based in memory, self-reflection, and vulnerability. It is the broken watches of deceased family members, baby teeth, moments in history, momentos from a vacation or a subway ride—all simple reminders of people we love and homages to lived experiences. At its heart, this project encourages and celebrates making space to value and listen to each other.

Ephemera collected at a dinner with Waterville Public Library employees and students from Colby College Civic Engagement and Religious and Spiritual Life on October 20, 2023.

“I write to invite you to join some of my favorite students for an evening of community building and sharing on Friday, October 20th from 5:30-7:30pm. This event is a part of the Ephemera Project by artist Tanja Hollander. Tanja brought the Ephemera Project to our community as a part of a grant with Waterville Creates.

I am hosting dinner for a mix of students and community members in which we share objects that are important to us as a way to build connection. Tanja Hollander's art takes these objects and photographs them along with descriptions of each item, thus both cataloguing the things that are important to us, and creating an art collection of unique emotional depth.

When Tanja and I dreamed up this event I immediately knew I wanted it to be a part of the student fellowship program in my office. For those of you whom I haven't yet met, I am the Dean of Religious and Spiritual Life at Colby College. I work with an amazing group of 10 student fellows who take on projects that range from bringing restorative practice community circles to campus, to leading our Muslim student community, leading dinner conversation groups and more. This year these students are atheist, agnostic, religious, citizens of the US, Mexico, India and Pakistan, athletes and artists. They are truly remarkable people, and I'd like to see them deepen their connection to Waterville. I also knew that if I could choose the community members I'd want my students to know it would be the staff and volunteers at the public library. As a trustee and avid library user you all play a critical role in supporting the community.

We are looking for 10 community members to join my 10 students for this program. If there is greater interest I will expand to ensure that everyone can participate.” - Kate Smanik

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From Tanja’s crowd sourced collection exhibition images opening June 20, 2023 at the Paul J. Schupf Center

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These images were collected from the public in Waterville at the Schupf Center over the summer of 2023. They will be installed alongside the current images in September.

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