Armed with Art, Teens Confront Violence

Photo from Peace in Focus flickr site

Peace in Focus works with youth to teach leadership skills and to express their visions of peace and non-violence via photography. Or in their words "Grassroots Peace Photojournalism." The organization works with youth artists in Boston, Birundi, and Liberia to teach photography as a vehicle to share their experiences and perspectives with the rest of the world.

An exhibit of the photos is up at the Harriet Tubman house in Boston & they held the opening event last night, complete with performances, beautiful photographs, and a wonderful community of individuals to support the teens. I was really impressed by the program's ability to train young photographers - it was clear from the quality & composition of the photographs that the programming covers technique, storytelling, and leadership responsiblity. The teens at the event were energetic, passionate, articulate and inspirational, and it was so refreshing to see positive work happening at the local & international level. Great event!

Urbanites "Go Native," Grow Community

Interesting threads on the interwebs:

The Helpsters are Coming! Er, maybe. Interesting if cynical article about hipsters-turn helpsters getting involved in their communities. Shout out to seed bombs noted. Can someone please find them a better name? Article via Huffington Post "Impact"


FEAST - recurring community dinner in Bklyn to fund democratically selected community art projects. Nice.

Seed Bombs (A How-To)
photo by Gina Ferazzi, LA Times

Creative Capital: Kickstart Good Ideas with $$

screenshot of kickstarter.com

Kickstarter.com combines two simple ideas for a fantastic website: 1) Creative projects need exposure for funding, and 2) We like getting something in return for giving our money away. So "creative and ambitious" projects with a specific funding goal -- say $5,000 -- pitch their project to you, and tell you what you'll get in return for different levels of funding. The fun, creative, and entrepreneurial feeling of the site makes you want to jump in and support your local artist, organization, inventor, researcher, or ethical butcher (he's cool!). But you can only donate to your favorite project for a limited time, and it's all or nothing -- if they don't meet their funding goal, all of the pledges are canceled and it's back to square one. Kinda like Kiva for art and innovation.... Go to their site to check it out!

James Knight Smith - Abstract Photography

James Knight-Smith, My Place 2009

Featured in Visuramagazine.com, Issue 6. Just absolutely stunning, captivating images.

Are Creatives Nervous About Creativity?

An interesting blog article by Grant McCracken titled "Creativity's Brief Moment in the Sun" suggests that we are facing the sunset of a creative era. He is concerned that the supply of professional "creatives" is growing so fast that soon no one will want to pay for creative work anymore, because companies will outsource creative work to online artistic hopefuls willing to work for free in exchange for "exposure." This does not seem like a new predicament in the art world.

To me, the growth of creative professionals is a natural progression from the essay, Art Alienated, which argued against the artificial commodification and separation of art from daily life. I hope that we are leaving a time where we depend on an elite to finance and frame our experience with the creative arts. McCracken's article ponders what designers and other professional creative types are supposed to do now that "everybody" is getting more creative. He worries that an oversaturation of dilettante creatives will dilute the market and make it even harder for professional creatives to pay for their health insurance. I say, let's celebrate! Isn't increased awareness and inclusion of creativity in U.S. culture something that we're aiming for? Now that it's happening, let's encourage it -- we have a long way to go before the average U.S. citizen has too much creativity in his daily life.

When we talk about art being expensive and valuable, remember that it's unlikely that the artist herself received worldly comfort in the process of sharing her vision and skill with the world. The more likely story is that the artist traded his or her artworks for doctor's visits and rent, or was perhaps lucky enough to support an art career on the income of a spouse or inheritance. To a certain extent, the production of such fine art is the creation of an artificially scarce supply of "creative products" that further ensure scarcity after the artist's death. These scarce artworks ultimately become a currency by which capital can be traded among a particular group of economic elite. So protecting who counts as an "artist" doesn't solve this payment problem either.

I think it would be great to see designers and artists 1) employed as the resident creative type, or as McCracken has crafted it, the "Chief Culture Officer," to consult in the "non-art" strategic vision of a company to bring creativity and, 2) called on to facilitate and provide a framework by which citizens (not consumers) can experience and develop their own creative side. I imagine that McCracken's book covers the first topic, but I'm interested to see if it also addresses this second point. That is, let's not accept the status quo -- let's move designers, artists, musicians, etc. into a new role, where they craft frameworks and experiental installations, websites, environments, etc. where non-artists can develop and strengthen their own creative practice.

Power of Music to Inspire

Some great inspiration in honor of this week's World Aids Day

One at a Time
music video by Travis McCoy

Videos: Art Speaks Truth to Power

The power of videos on the internet is an amazing way to engage people on climate change. Some great recent ones:

Go to Copenhagen
HuffPost wants YOU to be their Citizen Ambassador!

From "Cope" to "Hope"
by Olgivy

Hmmm.. well, I can't find this on YouTube anymore...

What Would Our Kids Do?
from Moms Against Climate Change

Dancing for the Climate: Powershift Australia

Using dance to engage the public & get fun, positive attention for climate change. The video takes a little while to get going, but it's a great action. Powershift is a youth conference to create leadership around clean energy and green jobs. I attended the US version in March '09 held in DC.

Get Rich Quick: Hip Hop Gasping

My heart tells me, that this is not what graf was supposed to become:

image from Carmichael Gallery on Flickr
Uhhhh. An "urban art" show titled "Get Rich Quick"? Gross. Come on artists, what about something more "hip hop" themed like "Get Rich or Starve Tryin." Or does 50 Cent have copyright on that? What's killing me is that I really used to like you guys. You all were my last little hope that winning at life doesn't mean materialism, but you get a show in a beautiful gallery and this is what they name it? Swoon -- when you pieced those boats together with your friends, was it really to have your name joined with Shepard Fairey? Ick. Your work is BEAUTIFUL! And I thought those projects meant something about having a community. KAWS, maybe you could get a collaboration going with Damien Hirst. When you were cooking wheatpaste in your kitchen, was it really with dreams of a big house in the suburbs with expensive leather sofas? And Banksy, come on! What about all of that the social commentary? Was that really all about making money? Really?

YES! artists should get paid for their work. I've seen my mom lugging supplies and plywood enough to know that you have to have your heart and soul and body in it to stay in the game. But the title of the show is just repulsive considering what street art used to be at its inception, and what I thought it was all about. I thought it was about adding beauty, commentary, and creativity to public spaces that everyone else had thrown away. I thought it was about engaging with the community and grabbing people out of their haze and back into their environment. There's also a solo show at the same time by Brazilian artist Thais Beltrame coincidentally entitled "When all the stars are gone." Interesting.

What's making me bite my tounge a little is that this gallery shows gobs and gobs of ridiculously talented visual artists. So my qualm is not with the gallery, it's with the "artists" who are going to add a show called "Get Rich Quick" to their credentials. Bleh.

Maybe I just don't understand the deeper artistic meaning that the title is trying to bring to contemporary art. Maybe I'm not appreciating the irony (which, itself would be ironically ironic??). Or maybe, this what the Splasher (remember him/her?) was trying to make a statement about -- if you're going to let street art be synonymous with materialism, instead of opposed to it, all you're posting around the neighborhood are unpaid advertisements for materialism, not public art.

Public Karaoke in London

Thousands of people sing karaoke together in London.

VIDEO HERE

Here's a fun, free time for a lot of city dwellers of all ages to hang out together and participate in something that makes them smile. Interactive engagement, especially in fun, creative things that everyone can do is a great way to get people to enjoy living in their city. Nice.

It's a bit on the commercial side -- since the hosting telecommunications company will use the video footage to make commercials & promotions, but I'll take it.

Conference: Urban Design & Ecology

Keynote speakers are Rem Koolhaas and Homi Bhabha. SOLD OUT.

Community + Art: AORTA Projects in New Orleans

AORTA Projects is a site-specific arts group working with post-disaster communities in New Orleans.



See their blog for recent projects (http://aortaprojects.blogspot.com/)

Art + Community: New Orleans

Pro-New Orleans T-Shirts

http://dirtycoast.com/home.php

image from dirtycoast.com and jambase.com

Give Art (back?) to the People!

"Don't tell me what issue you're working on, I want to know what solution you are working towards." ~ Van Jones (paraphrased, I can't find it online)

More information on organizations that are talking about the interaction between art and social issues, especially climate change.

Art in Action -- This is run by a museum called the Natural World Museum. The idea is art as a catalyst for sustainable community, but I don't see any programs that actually increase access to making art (not arts and crafts!!), From the site, NWM sticks to the traditional museum model of exposing visitors to art that other people magically produce. The museum has a blog that sporadically covers issues related to the role of public art in catalyzing social action. It has some interesting initial thoughts; I would like to see what interactive-type projects they might be working on.

United Nations -- So the UN holds an event called Paint for the Planet, and it sounds awesome. But when I looked at the pictures, it looked like a small, closed group in a fancy New York hotel looking at cutesy art made by privileged international kids at private schools. I got a "feels good, does little" feeling. It's a pleasant gesture, but it's not well-targeted for the size of participation that's really necessary to deal with climate change. It's a funny thing about using art to get people to change their thoughts and actions -- you have to actually go make art with people. That doesn't generally happen at fancy hotels or while wearing expensive clothes.

Paired with this was another great idea -- a UN seminar on the way that art can influence the public's ideas about the environment (Through the Art for the Environment Program). One of the sessions had a great title: Art for Change: Vehicles for Environmental Action; it's part of a brand new initiatived called UNite to Combat Climate Change. Great information I'm sure, but again, closed off from any real public participation.

I have this crazy idealist belief that people actually believe in the events and projects they devote their time and money to -- that it's not just lip service, buzz words, fancy dinners, and polite smiles, but I wonder if its possible to get so far from the street that you forget about what really matters to get at this huge mass of humanity (individuals!) who make our lives on this earth. If that's really and truely the target population, you can't get there by inviting the same faces to the solution-making table every time. It would be great to see discussions at this level happening out in public where young, interested people (like me!) can experience them and have productive discussions about successful ideas, projects, and models that they can take to their communities to re-integrate art-making into our culture.

Making Art in my Neighborhood

Pictures from a project I facilitated with teens in my neighborhood community center last summer.

I worked with a great community organizer and leader, Lucious Murchison to put this piece together. I had left my number with the organization to volunteer to teach ultimate frisbee and got a call looking for someone to do an art project about "Peace Art." Ok.

Objective: Create a dialogue with two local populations to address recent violence in the neighborhood: 1) a group of 8 local teens working as summer camp counselors, 2) general youth attending a community block party event at the end of the summer.

Product: An indoor installation to represents the teen's discussions about violence, peace, change, and healthy communities, and that represents the thoughts and voices of the youth in the community.

Method: Workshops to get the teens to brainstorm & prep for the community party activities: Visualizations, lessons about symbolism, metaphors, public art, exercise to photograph the aspects of their community that they are proud of, that they really like. They made individual collages those printed photographs to make a Mission Hill out of all of the "best parts" of their environment.


Themes:
Birds: Peace, community
Cranes: Japanese tradition of wishing for something important
White cranes: Community members who have passed, whose voices and memories still matter
Feathers: Each feather carries a youth's wish for their community
Colors on the large birds: after talking about the positive parts of the neighborhood, we created a graffiti mural about aspects of the community the teens would like to change, paired with agents and symbols of change, the mural was folded into the three birds, representing the ability to identify and transform your circumstances into something unexpected and purposeful.

Street Art: What is going on?

Personal reminder: Turn this section into an organized and constructive reflection about street art/ mainstream marketing/ materialism/ consumerism/ intellectual property & the creative commons/ promotion of public arts and artists/ the role of the artist as an individual and as an ideal etc. as sparked by the Fairey talk I saw last night at the ICA.

Refer to previous blogpost about "selling self worth through handbags."

Include mother's observation: "Art needs more roadies and less groupies." Consider replacing "Art" with "Life." Copyright the quote under mom's name before someone else makes posters with it.

Interesting recent articles:
http://www.myartspace.com/blog/2008/12/for-love-of-god-damien-hirst-threatens.html

http://edwardwinkleman.blogspot.com/2007/06/good-artists-borrowgreat-artists-sell.html

Community Arts: Boston's Artists for Humanity

Artists For Humanity is a Boston-based arts program that trains and hires teens to produce mixed media art for local businesses. Nice website and vision for community inclusion. They are also focused on green issues, and sustainability. Creative economic model.

Article about their building's "green features"

Breaking in Cambodia

http://www.tinytoonescambodia.com

Using breakdancing to get kids to take classes, to do something fun and healthy. The founder himself has an inspiring personal story.

Behavior, Energy and Climate Change

I made this graphic after attending the Behavior, Energy, and Climate Change (BECC) conference in Sacramento. I think the five criteria (fun, interactive, personal, easy, local) apply to more than just energy efficiency and should be adopted by any organization working on climate change. If we want our communities to take effective action about climate change, the actions have to be suggested effectively as well.

Freeriding

I was talking with strangers about climbing up buildings with toilet plungers tonight, and coincidentally stumbled on this variety of the same idea from designer Robert Nightingale:


...and they say hopping trains is risky...


Posted on Yanko Design