If the intoxicating scent of fresh-baked bread permeated Farmington’s air on Sunday, April 26th, it’s probably because 330 quarantined locals bought $5 baking kits and tuned in to Sunflour Bakehaus’ nearly five hour, free, live-streamed bread-making class.

“It seemed like almost everybody we knew was baking bread with us at the same time, which was really cool,” said Sunflour co-owner Becky Burns, whose husband, Jeff Pavlik, led the workshop in their home’s kitchen. “ … At first, we thought we were going to sell maybe 50 kits, but then it got to a point where making more kits seemed to be the only thing we were doing.”

Sunflour’s hugely popular bread-baking class is just one example of several downtown Farmington businesses’ attempts to serve, and stay connected with, their quarantined customer base via online tools like YouTube, Facebook Live, and Zoom. READ THE REST HERE

A courtroom has always been an emotionally charged space.

It’s where ideas and memories are challenged; conflicting argument are voiced; and our sense of justice is either frustrated or satisfied by a judge’s (or a jury’s) ruling.

Yet this inherent tension is precisely what inspired Courtney McClellan to create Witness Lab, a performance-activated installation at UMMA’s Stenn Gallery (February 5-May 17), co-presented by the Roman J. Witt Residency Program at the Penny W. Stamps School of Art & Design.

Resembling an austere courtroom painted in shades of blue of white, Witness Lab invited visitors to consider the relationship between performance and the law, as well as the concept of witnessing as a social and artistic act.

Programmed events, meanwhile, explored the deep connection between the courtroom’s function and its physical space.

“Chloe Root’s Community High School mock trial team opened Witness Lab,” said McClellan, who hails from Greensboro, North Carolina. “They were really engaged and made me so hopeful about the impact of the project, but also the importance of practice and learning at even an early age.” READ THE REST HERE