STENCILS: Public Space and Social Intervention
July 26 – August 25, 2007
Reception: Thursday July 26, 6 – 8 pm.
The New England School of Art & Design at Suffolk University
75
Arlington Street Boston, MA 02116, Phone (617) 573 8785
http://www.suffolk.edu/nesad/gallery
Gallery hours: Monday-Saturday 9am-9pm. Enter from
10 Saint James after 7pm and on weekends
Organized by Hiroko Kikuchi and Alice Vogler
Participating Artists:
Dirk Adams, Beth Balliro, Michael Gardiner, Geoff Hargadon, Lazaro
Montano, Lucas Murida, Liz Nofziger, Melina O'Grady & daughter
Niko, Vela Phelan, Paul Roux, Claudia Salamanca, Jonathan Santos,
and Andi Sutton
What is “stencil” and/or an act of “stenciling”?
The exhibition STENCILS features works by artists who have responded
this question both literally and metaphorically and defined it through
a wide range of subject matters and mediums. Some of the works address
particular issues such as the gender bias among young children, media
literacy, street violence, politics of value, environmental responsibility,
waste from technology, and neighborhood gentrification; others are
generated from personal views of what “stencil(ing)” means
to them.
The exhibition itself is designed as an interactive event where
viewers are encouraged to participate in both the gallery and public
space components of the exhibition in order to complete the experience
of each piece. Some of the works are performance-based with actual
performances during the exhibition at locations around the city;
others will feature instructive elements that the viewer can interact
with in/outside the gallery spaces.
A full schedule of all the related events and performances will
be announced through email and available in the gallery space during
the run of the exhibition.
Short Description of Work (full description is available upon request)
Dirk Adams is a performance artist, and his Drawing Attention is
a guided-participatory sound walk that invites the audience to experience
parts of the city through sound. Audio kit will be available in the
gallery.
Beth Balliro’s Toward a Public Garden is a public intervention
work that addresses the experiences of the collective-loss as
a result of homicide in the city of Boston. Balliro creates a
path with the stenciled icons with seeds to honor the memory
of the victims and the gestures of the original assemblers of
the monuments created for the victims.
In Treads of Silk from Nowere, Michael Gardiner (composer) with
WMBR’s radio host Ken Field explores to “stencil” computer
generated and processed sounds onto the surface of a radio broadcast
in real time.
Geoff Hargadon’s Light Box is an interactive installation
piece that viewers are encouraged to trace the template placed
in public. The use of chalk to create the drawings seeks to draw
attention to the impermanent and ethereal nature of street art.
Lazaro Montano’s Stencil-Stenciling is an interactive
public art project that places dates to demark spots of certain
changes in the South End neighborhood.
Lucas Murida’s Stencil(ing): Sniff is a performance intervention
piece using an odor as a way to stencil the city of San Francisco.
In Boston, the audience will be invited to create the odor system
to re-create the piece.
Liz Nofziger’s Media-edit (T.V. cozy) interrupts and transforms
the stream of media and advertising that surrounds us in public or
semi-public spaces. Installed with permission or guerrilla-style,
this simple paper "stencil" leaves no trace as it abstracts
the media into a form which will ideally transcend its own bulimic
content.
Melina O'Grady and daughter Niko’s Blink challenges the emphasis
we place on the relevance of gender in young children over other
areas of their growth and development. There will be a group of volunteers
whose children will wear pink t-shirts that say "boy" or
blue t-shirts that say "girl."
Vela Phelan’s A Gods Shadow is a performance stencil action
using four small statues of gods/goddess from four different
continents to cast their shadows in announced locations. This
project pays attention to the physical form given to gods and
how they're only true physical manifestation of life is through
the shadow they cast. Please visit: www.agodsshadow.templeofmessages.com
Paul Roux’s I'm busy being busy, here's my card… is
a social intervention piece that addresses constructed-notions
of value and priority in contemporary civilization. Dressed in
suits with a large sign that reveals his personal and social
statement, he is interested in his self-appointed task of questioning
mainstream materialistic systems in a world where close to half
the world's population live on less than the equivalent of $2/day.
Claudia Salamanca’s Abandoned technology is an interactive
public intervention project, in which what somebody left (i.e.
abandon) will be recuperated through the web and through language
as a second mode of intervention, as a retrace of the trace of
a history of use, misuse, and disuse.
Jonathan Santos’s 1-1=1 is a temporary site-responsive
project that responds to the recent rise in fatal street aggressions
in Greater Boston. The nonsensical equation, 1-1=1 (one person
killing one person equals one crime statistic) is stenciled on
the sidewalk at each site of these violent incidents with phosphorescent
paint, presenting a subtle visual reminder of the temporality
of life and the permanent impact of these acts, while simultaneously
marking a vigil for those who are lost.
Andi Sutton’s crosspollennation is a performance intervention
project that takes place along the MBTA’s Number 1 bus
route. By pushing her own physical and emotional limits, Sutton
will explore the changes in the social landscape along this route
-- through exchange.
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