:

The Gatherade Stand is a co-authored art project in the form of a lemonade stand that served drinks made from wild-foraged plants and created opportunities for collaborative creativity centering those same plants. Gilian Rappaport, alongside elementary school teacher Alexis Johnson and her fifth grade class, initiated the project in Spring 2022 at Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. School in Northeast Portland, Oregon with support from the King School Museum of Contemporary Art (KSMoCA). The project aimed to encourage the connection of students and their communities to the natural world through gatherings around wild plants. The spring season focused on the nettle plant. The platform supported community building, nature education, and cross-disciplinary art making through weekly workshops on site at Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. School from April 26 - June 6, 2022 that focused on collaging, drawing, poetry and spoken word inspired by the nettle plant, as well as a soda making workshop with foraged nettle leaves – all of which happened on site at the school.

The art made in the workshops came together to form interactive installations that were open to students on the school playground, and in their library. There, students served the nettle sodas, canned with labels made of prints of their original artwork and names. At this critical time of climate catastrophe, this project asks: how does nature education fit into the curriculums of urban, public schools - especially in rapidly gentrifying neighborhoods? What does it look like when elementary school students share the messages they hear from nature? How do we share and celebrate those messages? What stories naturally stick, and what connections become possible?

Gilian began by serving nettle tea to the students. They created a large wooden sign that proudly appropriates Gatorade branding reading “The Gatherade Stand” in response to the student’s interest. The students made visual artworks that responded to the prompt: “If a nettle plant made a protest sign, what would it say?” Gilian hosted a table at Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. School Celebration Day at the school with a collaging workshop inspired by shapes of nettle leaves. Further workshops facilitated song and spoken word and poetry writing about and for the nettle plant and making soda from dried nettle leaves inside a school classroom. They canned the soda with Mike Lockwood of Duality Brewing, and chose student artworks and names for the can labels. They made placemats featuring names for the nettle plant in languages spoken across the student body, alongside new original names created by the students. They invited DJ and composer DJ Tikka Masala (aka Janhavi Pakrashi) to collaborate on an original audio piece about nettle. Artist Bex Copper made portraits with the students, the sign, and the cans during a pop-up on the playground at the school. Gilian interviewed Alexis Johnson about her experience as a collaborator on the project. Gilian also interviewed Nellie Scott, director of the Corita Art Center in Los Angeles about Sister Corita Kent and her history with pop art as a strategy to reach a public with her messages of justice and peace for SOFA Journal’s Spring 2022 issue. Gilian, Ms. Johnson, and the students created an interactive installation in the library of the elementary school, known as The Gatherade Stand 01. This installation was presented as part of Assembly 2022, an annual social practice art conference, through KSMoCA, a contemporary art museum.

—

Lead artist: Gilian Rappaport

Collaborating artist: Alexis Johnson (5th grade teacher)

Student artists: Aden, Ana, Bella, Caeden, Caterina, Chanel, Fatina, Matthew, Mo, Penelope, Rehema, Romelia, Romero, Serena, Taylor, Timmy, Zayair

Photos: Harvee Bird, Bex Copper, Laura Glazer, and Gilian Rappaport

Design: Gilian Rappaport

Special thanks to Ms. Johnson, Amanda Lareeva, Aggy Hosey, Lisa Jarrett, Michael Bernard Stevenson, Harrell Fletcher, Lucia Monge, LillyAnne Pham, Diana Cuertas, Mo Geiger, Laura Glazer, Luz Blumenthal, Laura Glazer, Becca Kauffman, DJ Tikka Masala, and Hilary Rappaport. Most materials are sourced from SCRAP, a creative reuse center that sells donated art supplies in Portland, Oregon.

Download The Gatherade Stand poster, made in collaboration with Ms. Johnson’s fifth grade class at Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. School