Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
FEATURE
Three projects by members of the first graduating class evince new strategies for public art.
JULES ROCHIELLE SIEVERT (09, MFA)
01
Portable City:
Ending the Silence Between Us
Jules Rochelle Sievert at left; Suzanne Lacy and Program Manager Consuelo Velasco in front, with members of the class of 09 and visitors to p.i.e. (public interventionist education) at Santa Monica Colleges Pete & Susan Barrett Art Gallery
After several months of eld work and research in the Central Valley, students created projects on Main St. such as storefront painting, projections of images of the regions daily life, and a new sign/gate for the towns entry. Laton Live!, an event celebrating the towns rich heritage, took place on March 21. In The Little CA Town that Served as a Muse, L.A. Times writer Susan Emerling wrote The residents of Laton got to see themselves through the eyes of a dedicated group of (Otis) outsiders, and those outsiders got to see the effect of their work on their adopted town. See more at www.youtube.com/otiscollege
I believe that a desirable future depends on our deliberately choosing a life of action over a life of consumption, on our engendering a lifestyle which will enable us to be spontaneous, independent, yet related to each other, rather than maintaining a lifestyle which only allows to make and unmake, produce and consumea style of life which is merely a way station on the road to the depletion and pollution of the environment. The future depends more upon our choice of institutions which support a life of action than on our developing new ideologies and technologies. Ivan Illich Automatic. Everyday, at hyper-speed, whether I want to or not, I am performing a gender, a race, a specific time in history, a class, and sexuality. I am performing the institution of the city, a body, the pedestrian, the transit user, or the city dweller. Unwittingly, my body, my mind and spirit have institutionalized this process, reflecting how the body and spirit embody the historical memory of all things that came before. My primary artistic concern rests with HOPE and the collective and, how we as artists, crafts people, cultural workers and creative thinkers and dialogue builders begin to collectively and collaboratively visualize a present and future based on knowledge we have regarding our history and past. Do we use broken models from the past or do we choose how to think about things deeply? In my awareness of time-space compression, I am choosing a discursive art form as a means to become more civically engaged as a mechanism for problem solving and design. The Portable City is about creating a social space through which to engage people in conversation and exchange, using an arts-based approach to building human connection while ending the silence that exists between us; it is a study on creating dialogue amongst those who experience urban alienation and isolation: The conversations held in real time act as a platform for the idea of connection and dialogue. The Portable City project asserts that the I and thou become meaningfully engaged through communicating about a shared experience, and thoughts about a shared relationship to the landscape, geography and public space, day-to-day life, and our sense of memory and belonging. It has been deeply inspired by the work and writings of Guy Debord and The Situationist International, the notion of the Soapbox and the Speakers Corner, Allan Kaprow, Relational Aesthetics, and my own drives.
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FEATURE
ANDY MANOUSHAGIAN (09,MFA) OFUNNE OBIAMIWE (09, MFA)
FEATURE
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