Teens create while going green at Wex

This was the scene earlier this month in the Wexner Center's Performance Space: local high school students making miniature animals out of clay as part of a project by Morgan Guider of Marysville High School to represent the whopping 2,400 animals the average American will eat in a lifetime (not surprisingly, Morgan is a vegan). Her final project and others will be on view May 28–June 2 as part of Interventions: Students Respond to the Environment, the culmination of the half-year course Art & Environment led by the Wexner Center's education department and attended by high school students from across the state (16 of them this year). With weekly sessions and field trips ranging from the polar research center at Ohio State to AEP's "green" power plant in West Virginia to a chat with internationally known visual artist Dennis Oppenheim, the students have been thinking and talking about the state of the natural world and how to work the environment into their art projects (topics range from environmental racism to noise pollution to the "slow foods" movement). A public opening reception for the exhibition will be held Thursday, May 28 from 6 to 8 pm at the Wex, and the students will be recognized at a Columbus City Council resolution on June 1.