Salem Harbor Station opens for art exhibit June 16-July 2

SALEM – During its 63 years in operation, until it went offline on June 1, most area residents probably never had the occasion to visit the coal-and-oil fired Salem Harbor Station.But the plant’s new owner, Footprint, plans to open the plant beginning Monday and through July 2, for, of all things, a public art exhibition, “Across the Bridge.”The exhibit will feature experience-based art projects created by Montserrat College of Art students, inspired by and produced in collaboration with workers at the Salem Harbor Station plant located at 24 Fort Ave.This first-of-its-kind project, “Across the Bridge,” is the result of a unique partnership between Montserrat College of Art and Footprint Power, whose primary goal was to honor and document the lives and work of the power plant employees, most of whom have moved on to other opportunities with the coal plant’s closure.According to Montserrat Academic Dean Laura Tonelli, the project dovetailed perfectly with a campus initiative to expand learning beyond the traditional classroom through collaborative, interdisciplinary projects with businesses and community organizations. In April of this year, the initiative, called StudioXL (Studio for Experiential Learning), received funding from the Davis Educational Foundation.The documentary project was conducted by 29 Montserrat students and four faculty (Ethan Berry, Rebecca Bourgault, Dawn Paul and project coordinator Elizabeth Cohen) in collaboration with the plant employees. The project and exhibition are funded by Footprint Power.”It is a difficult thing to convey the tremendous and sometimes heroic lengths to which our staff has gone in operating this plant to safely and reliably provide power to the North Shore,” remarked Footprint Power CEO Peter Furniss. “We are grateful for this opportunity to work with such a talented group of artists to begin to capture the beauty and power of Salem Harbor Station and the team that has made it work.””Across the Bridge” will include a variety of media: photography and video, drawings, paintings, poetry, sculpture and installations. It will be exhibited in the turbine hall – a unique industrial space never previously opened to the public. In addition, there will be an opportunity to see portions of the power plant itself, with mini-tours of the vintage operating equipment and control room.Montserrat College of Art’s Improbable Places Poetry Tour will hold a poetry reading on the theme “power of work/work of power” July 2, 7-9 p.m. More information on submitting or registering to attend is online at www.montserrat.edu/blog/category/improbable-places-poetry-tour.Workers from the plant, and Montserrat College of Art students who have created the works on view, will serve as guides during the exhibition.