We are privileged to have an installation by Hock E Aye Vi/Edgar Heap of Birds on the campus of the University of Illinois. I wrote about being a docent with the work in the previous post. But I wanted to reflect a little more on this powerful work. The backwards writing (FIGHTING ILLINI), which refers […]
To You, Little Bigger than a Sweet Summer Pink Peach
This three-dimensional colorful drawing that is a joyous tangle in the Socrates Sculpture Park in Queens, New York City, captures the energy and delight I have been feeling since the trees began to blossom here and the tulips and daffodils are popping open. The sculptor named it “To You, Little Bigger than a Sweet Summer […]
Actions
Another inspiring link from Sarah Ross: Actions, a show at the Canadian Centre for Architecture (CCA). The exhibit includes suits that transform into swings, mobile pool tables, urban farms, dumpster diving, and Sarah’s own velour suits for urban lounging. The table wedged between freeway columns activates the space in a way that creates intimacy. CCA […]
Imagining America, 2008
A friend recently asked me what two things I learned from attending the annual conference of Imagining America in early October 2008. In general, I will say that 1) it matters to see people in their home milieu, and 2) it demystified public engagement work for me. The conference was quite small, and mostly West […]
Gaullimaufry
I learned this cool word–gallimaufry–from a recent interview with Germaine Greer. She said it meant “a thing of threads and patches” and my dictionary says, “hodge podge.” In any case, it is an apt word for the meanderings I post here and my daily life, for that matter. The artist Sarah Ross had an exhibit […]
Aesthetics and Protest
The Journal of Aesthetics and Protest #6 is out! There are some very fine pieces in it too. Thanks to Robby Herbst, I was able to look it over. Amy Franceschini is interviewed by Christina Ulke on the San Francisco Victory Gardens+2007. Urban agriculture is on the rise, coast to coast. Amy F’s folks were […]
YES!
Jane Rendell wrote in 2000: …[A]rchitecture takes inspiration from other spatial arts. Architects can learn possible tactics and strategies from the work of feminists in dance, film, art and writing, as well as those artists operating in the public spaces of the city, for example, Niki de Saint Phalle, Maya Lin and Suzanne Lacy. I […]
Active History
There’s a conference coming up in the Fall of 2008 in Toronto called “Active History.” I have been having email “conversations” with several colleagues about the roles that history plays in contemporary art practice, in design studios, and in community settings. Nick Brown reminded me of a couple of efforts in Pittsburgh and in Toronto […]
Cesar Chavez Digital/Mural Lab
Together with UCLA, the Social and Public Art Resource Center (SPARC), founded by Judy Baca in Los Angeles 28 years back, runs the only lab that creates community-based digitally-generated public art for murals, the Cesar Chavez Digital/Mural Lab. SPARC also works with folks to create banners, websites, performances, video and public monuments. “The Great Wall […]
Mali Intersection, Urbana Crossroads
Isn’t this cool? What a way to mark an intersection! Here’s what artist Janet Goldner writes about it: The Association Segou-Laben, a group of artists in Segou [Mali] including bogolan artist Boubacar Doumbia and sculptor Amahiguere Dolo, invited me to collaborate with them to create a steel sculpture for a traffic circle on the major […]
