Monthly Archives: October 2011

OFF THE GRID: Recharging Public Art + Design

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OFF THE GRID: Recharging Public Art + Design, a full-day symposium hosted by the City of Austin’s Art in Public Places Program, will feature an intimate look at existing and future public art and design in the Seaholm District, a former industrial section of southwest downtown Austin that is undergoing a transformation into a vibrant urban neighborhood. A uniquely Austin adaptive reuse project, the Seaholm District serves as a model for sustainable urban revitalization nationwide. Panel speakers include Jana McCann, McCann Adams Studio; Greg Kiloh, Economic Growth and Redevelopment Services Office, City of Austin; and John Rosato, Southwest Strategies Group.

In addition to the Seaholm District presentation, the symposium will feature:

  • Interactive building game and presentation by Alex Gilliam of Public Workshop
  • Exploration of sustainable materials in public art with Rebecca Ansert of Green Public Art
  • Panel discussion about the integration of art in urban agriculture with Randy Jewart, Austin Green Art; Jake Stewart, Sustainable Urban Agriculture, City of Austin; and Jessie Temple, Festival Beach Community Garden
  • Networking opportunities with breakfast and lunch provided by Ecstatic Cuisine
  • Resource materials from event presenters and information on upcoming AIPP opportunities

The symposium will take place from 9:00 am – 3:30 pm on Saturday, October 8, 2011 at the decommissioned Seaholm Power Plant located at the terminus of West Street at 3rd Street. Check-in and breakfast begin at 8:30 am. REGISTER BY OCTOBER 5 at www.cvent.com/d/fcqjff. SPACE IS LIMITED! Admission is $20 (includes breakfast and lunch). Parking is available in the surrounding neighborhood. Be sure to wear comfortable clothes and shoes.

The Art in Public Places Program is partnering with the Solid Waste Services Department and the Austin Convention Center to make this a zero waste event. Participants are encouraged to bring reusable water bottles, coffee mugs, silverware and dishware to aid in reducing waste. Please note that there will not be facilities to clean reusable items on site.

AFTERWARDS: The symposium will be followed by an interactive workshop sponsored by the Downtown Austin Alliance and conducted by Alex Gilliam of Public Workshop and Austin AIA members. The Old Bakery Block Idea-a-Thon will be held in and around the Old Bakery Building on the west side of Congress Avenue, between 10th and 11th streets from 4:00 pm to 7:00 pm. Symposium attendees are encouraged to participate. For more information, visit: www.aiaaustin.org/event/old-bakery-block-idea-thon.

NOTE: Both the symposium and the Idea-a-Thon are held in conjunction with Austin x Design, a month-long community celebration of design in Austin. To find more events, visit: www.austinbydesign.org or www.facebook.com/AustinbyDesign.

Questions? Contact Carrie Brown, Art in Public Places Coordinator, at 512-974-9310 or carrie.brown@austintexas.gov. Visit AIPP at www.austintexas.gov/aipp.

 

Rebecca Ansert, founder of Green Public Art, is an art consultant who specializes in artist solicitation, artist selection, and public art project management for both private and public agencies. She is a graduate of the master’s degree program in Public Art Studies at the University of Southern California and has a unique interest in how art can demonstrate green processes or utilize green design theories and techniques in LEED certified buildings.

Green Public Art is a Los Angeles-based consultancy that was founded in 2009 in an effort to advance the conversation of public art’s role in green building. The consultancy specializes in public art project development and management, artist solicitation and selection, creative community involvement and knowledge of LEED building requirements. Green Public Art also works with emerging and mid-career studio artists to demystify the public art process. The consultancy acts as a resource for artists to receive one-on-one consultation before, during, and after applying for a public art project.
Go to Green Public Art

International Conference on Degrowth in the Americas

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Montreal, Quebec, Canada

May 14th-20th, 2012

“This conference will focus on the particular situations and dynamics of the Americas. What does degrowth mean for our Hemisphere with its rich geographical, cultural, social and economic diversity? How can degrowth models apply to different contexts from the Arctic to Tierra del Fuego? What does degrowth mean for the indigenous peoples of the Americas and their aspirations for their lands and peoples? How can degrowth concepts be made audible, understandable and acceptable to rich North Americans?

This gathering will bring together academics, activists, environmentalists and indigenous peoples to discuss our needs and hopes for diverse and more equitable societies in the Americas, on a post-growth healing earth.”

more information:  http://montreal.degrowth.org

Cultura21 is a transversal, translocal network, constituted of an international level grounded in several Cultura21 organizations around the world.

Cultura21′s international network, launched in April 2007, offers the online and offline platform for exchanges and mutual learning among its members.

The activities of Cultura21 at the international level are coordinated by a team representing the different Cultura21 organizations worldwide, and currently constituted of:

– Sacha Kagan (based in Lüneburg, Germany) and Rana Öztürk (based in Berlin, Germany)
– Oleg Koefoed and Kajsa Paludan (both based in Copenhagen, Denmark)
– Hans Dieleman (based in Mexico-City, Mexico)
– Francesca Cozzolino and David Knaute (both based in Paris, France)

Cultura21 is not only an informal network. Its strength and vitality relies upon the activities of several organizations around the world which are sharing the vision and mission of Cultura21

Go to Cultura21

“In The Meantime”

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October 3rd, 2011
“The New School” (USA)

“In 1992 Jack Persekian founded Anadiel Gallery, the first and only independent gallery for Palestinian artists in Jerusalem. Persekian later founded the Al-Ma’mal Foundation to continue the gallery’s mission and to further promote, instigate, and disseminate the production of art in Palestine. In his talk, Persekian will share his experience – the challenges and the outcomes – of creating a space for Palestinian artists in Jerusalem. Have the methods for working in contested spaces, such as Israel, changed over the years? Does art have the potential to engage a zone of conflict in a different way than politics? Persekian was Head Curator of the Sharjah Biennial (2004–2007), Artistic Director of the Sharjah Biennial (2007–2011), and Director of the Sharjah Art Foundation (2009–2011).”

Al-Ma’mal Foundation:  www.almamalfoundation.org

The “Zones of Emergency: Artistic Interventions – Creative Responses to Conflict & Crisis” Fall 2011 lecture series investigates initiatives and modes of intervention in contested spaces, zones of conflict, or areas affected by environmental disasters. The intention is to explore whether artistic interventions can transform, disrupt or subvert current environmental, urban, political, and social conditions in critical ways. A crucial question is how can such interventions propose ideas, while at the same time respecting the local history and culture.

More information at the Zones of Emergency Blog: http://zonesofemergency.mit.edu/

Cultura21 is a transversal, translocal network, constituted of an international level grounded in several Cultura21 organizations around the world.

Cultura21′s international network, launched in April 2007, offers the online and offline platform for exchanges and mutual learning among its members.

The activities of Cultura21 at the international level are coordinated by a team representing the different Cultura21 organizations worldwide, and currently constituted of:

– Sacha Kagan (based in Lüneburg, Germany) and Rana Öztürk (based in Berlin, Germany)
– Oleg Koefoed and Kajsa Paludan (both based in Copenhagen, Denmark)
– Hans Dieleman (based in Mexico-City, Mexico)
– Francesca Cozzolino and David Knaute (both based in Paris, France)

Cultura21 is not only an informal network. Its strength and vitality relies upon the activities of several organizations around the world which are sharing the vision and mission of Cultura21

Go to Cultura21

Techno-Ecologies

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This post comes to you from Cultura21

November 3rd – December 11th, 2011

Riga and Liepaja

“Techno-Ecologies is the theme of this year’s Art+Communication festival, the 13th edition of which will take place in Riga from November 3 – 6, 2011, featuring conference (November 4–5) and exhibition (November 4 – December 11) as well as broad programme of performances, screenings, public lectures and workshops in Riga and Liepaja, Latvia.”

“Techno-Ecologies builds upon the concerns of Felix Guattari (the French philosopher and co-conspirator of Gilles Deleuze) about the lack of an integrated perspective on the dramatic techno-scientific transformations the Earth has undergone in recent times. Guattari urges to take three crucially important ‘ecological registers’ into account: the environment, social relations, and human subjectivity.”

“Techno-Ecologies will develop a discussion between artists, theorists, designers, environmental scientists, technologists, responsible entrepreneurs and activists to develop this perspective. Diversity, social and ecological sustainability, and a much deeper understanding of technology as an extension of [their] desires are the building blocks that [they] want to bring together to build a perspective that can help [them] chart less hazardous routes into the future than the ones currently travelled.”

more info: http://rixc.lv/11/

Cultura21 is a transversal, translocal network, constituted of an international level grounded in several Cultura21 organizations around the world.

Cultura21′s international network, launched in April 2007, offers the online and offline platform for exchanges and mutual learning among its members.

The activities of Cultura21 at the international level are coordinated by a team representing the different Cultura21 organizations worldwide, and currently constituted of:

– Sacha Kagan (based in Lüneburg, Germany) and Rana Öztürk (based in Berlin, Germany)
– Oleg Koefoed and Kajsa Paludan (both based in Copenhagen, Denmark)
– Hans Dieleman (based in Mexico-City, Mexico)
– Francesca Cozzolino and David Knaute (both based in Paris, France)

Cultura21 is not only an informal network. Its strength and vitality relies upon the activities of several organizations around the world which are sharing the vision and mission of Cultura21

Go to Cultura21

A + E Conference: Day Two

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Day two in the coffee-and-crumpets conference world.

Patricia Johanson was a highlight. Not just because her presentation was comprehensive, wise, and dynamic. Not just because her work is ecologically restorative, respectful of local religions and cultures, and deeply rooted in community practice. Because in this field, where ideas are infectious, where doom is palpable, where the issues at hand are so huge as to be hilarious, Patricia Johanson has done the work. She’s gone out to Dallas and made a sculpture that restored a lagoon. She’s created a wetland sewage system that is both a tribute to and a habitat for an endangered species. She’s done it while continuing the dialogue both in terms of artistic form– sculpture, painting, light– and ecological relevance. Full disclosure: I asked for her autograph.

The morning started with the music of Sean Shepard— composed for the Nevada landscape. It continued through the cultural waters of Australia, tromped through Italy on Amy Franceschini’s Not A Trojan Horse, and announced the research project “Venue,” an extended journalistic road trip by Geoff Manaugh and Nicola Twilley.

On a day where MacArthur Genius fellow Jorge Pardo describes the houses he builds as not-architecture, author Bruce Sterling called for a reexamination of the definitions. “Disciplinary silos are breaking down in places like this,” he said. “You can actually hear them shattering.” What we have is not nature, he said. What we have is Next Nature, a world bereft of unaltered landscape. And the slow dawning is the sheer magnitude of the responsibility for that landscape.

The evening ended with a cocktail hour on the roof of the museum. On the one side, the mountains. Urban trees. On the other, the blinking lights of the biggest little city in the world. In a sense, Reno is the perfect setting for the destroying of silos.

AGUAZERO Call for Art

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Theme:
We are inviting submissions in water-based medium on or with paper.
The competition has an environmental agenda requesting submissions to reference the contrary character of climate change. For example, increased desertification and the escalating effects of weather events such as flooding and soil erosion.
The work should be based on observation, experience and invention. It must be as involved with the process and materials of painting/drawing etc. as with the response to climate change.
We are interested in works that invite close scrutiny and, like environmental events in the world around us, reveal themselves gradually and steadily over time, prompting reaction and renewed contemplation of the ecological challenges the world faces.
Prize:
A two week residency at Cortijada Los Gázquez / Joya: arte + ecologia, Andalucía, Spain including travel costs within Europe (not accommodation while in transit). Winners from outside of Europe can have their travel expenses paid once they are within the EU.
The winner will have sole use of a thirty square meter studio and 20 hectares of land for the period. Accommodation and meals are included as is collection and return to the nearest public transport system. Resident artists will be featured on the Joya: arte + ecología web page, which will include biographical information and images. The work undertaken during the residency will also be documented and entered into our archive.
http://www.losgazquez.com/en/joya/