DALLAS, TX.- On November 6, 2008 the Dallas Museum of Art and its community partner La Reunion TX will launch Make Space for Artists: Design-A-Studio in the Tech Lab of the Museum’s newly opened Center for Creative Connections. This design contest and program aims to transform the Tech Lab into an inspiring digital exhibition–community response project space. For it, museum visitors are invited to think about studio spaces where artists of any kind—painter, dancer, writer, sculptor, musician—do their creative work. How might a studio be different if the artist is a writer or photographer or sculptor? Is natural light desired or required? Where will the artist keep his or her tools and materials? What materials will be used in the design of the space and why?

Visitors will have the opportunity to consider these questions and others as they design a dream studio that will fit within a 16 foot cubic space. Contest entries will be submitted as drawings and visitors may choose between traditional media—site drawings, pencils, and pens—and digital media, such as laptop computers equipped with Google Sketch Up software and tutorials. Additionally, the Tech Lab will be filled with a variety of materials to aid visitors in the creative process: images of artists’ studios (representing artists in the Museum’s collections and local artists), thoughts on artists’ work spaces and architecture, design materials, and books. A digital presentation created by Dallas’s Corgan MediaLab will be projected in the space to feature the winning designs from La Reunion TX’s Make Space for Art. Held in early 2008, Make Space for Art was an international juried competition that focused on the complete future facility to be built on La Reunion’s 35-acre site in Oak Cliff.

Make Space for Artists: Design-A-Studio is an invitation for community input on the shaping of artist studios at the La Reunion site. All design entries submitted to the Make Space for Artists contest will be displayed in a variety of ways, including Flickr—an online community for sharing photography and video. The contest will run in the Tech Lab of the Center for Creative Connections from November 6, 2008 to February 12, 2009. At the close, the submissions will be juried and several winners selected. Cash prizes will be awarded and contest winners will be honored at a public event February 19, 2009 at the Dallas Museum of Art. A suite of public programs including Google Sketch-Up workshops and panel discussions with topics ranging from famous artists’ studios to architecture will coincide with the design contest.