On October 9th and 10th, Creative Time is set to converge more than 40 critical cultural producers in a second iteration of their popular and successful Revolutions summit.
Curator Nato Thompson’s selections are formed in response to the many unanswered questions in public practice:
“Is there a benefit to calling this work art and must such a category be used?” “To what end are some of the works merely gestures and lacking in political efficacy?” “Who is the audience for this work?” “What are the evaluative criteria from which socially engaged art can be assessed?”
In this year’s curatorial statement, Nato takes the third of those questions as the most salient. If it is true that political art preaches to the choir, an oft-heard criticism that was raised at last year’s summit, he asks, “Who is the choir?”, and enumerates his efforts to change its composition. The 2010 summit includes presenters from around the globe, and Nato:
intentionally considered the degree of social capital that each artist possesses in order to acknowledge and represent a vast community of artists who not only demure from the spotlight, but may in fact see individual financial success as running counter to their activist aspirations.
Creative Time furthers these efforts by offering a live broadcast of presentations via the web, and by holding a public discussion, moderated by Gregory Sholette, online after the summit.
Tickets, available at $50 for a weekend pass, or $35 for a day pass, are available here.
Conflict Kitchen, Pittsburgh’s pop-up, take-out food adventure into American foreign policy, serving one food from a nation with which the US government is in active conflict, is turning over. Now serving Iranian kubideh, soon the food, decor, and discussion fodder will soon change to Afghani, and the organizers need some funds to pull it off. The Kickstarter campaign at the right is the place to donate.
In addition to the storefront, supporters will be funding:
public events to more directly connect everyday Americans with everyday people from the country of focus. For example, Kubideh Kitchen brought together members of the public for a live Skype meal between Tehran and Pittsburgh, during which groups in both countries shared the same meal on a virtually connected table: an inter-continental dinner party.
More details, with video, after the jump.
Join Platform2 for the first of a five-part series of public readings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Fourth Assessment Report. Gather at Boston’s Park Street Station this Thursday for the Climate Chorus and give voice to part of the 600-page report – not all of which will be read at once, but spread out over the five events.
The art of reading aloud takes this arcane scientific policy text and makes it part of the voices of our city and our lives. Bring life to data, breathe the language of science, and join together in voicing the vision of our future.
Should you like to attend, the group asks that you RSVP via email.
Photo credit: Ruby Washington/The New York Times
Artists in Context will join with Australian artist, designer and engineer Natalie Jeremijenko to open an Environmental Health Clinic field office in 2011. Using the familiar context of medical care, Dr. Jeremijenko treats environmental issues and their concomitant impact on human life and emotion, especially anxiety. The New York Times writes:
Visitors to the clinic talk about an array of concerns, including contaminated land, polluted indoor air and dirty storm-water runoff. Dr. Jeremijenko typically gives them a primer on local environmental issues, especially the top polluters in their neighborhoods. Then she offers prescriptions that include an eclectic mix of green design, engineering and art — window treatments, maybe, or sunflowers, tadpoles or succulents.
Dr. Jeremijenko will introduce the project and new office in a lecture Thursday, September 30, 7-9PM, at the Cambridge Public Library (map) in Cambridge, MA. The event is free, but space is limited, so please take the time to RSVP with Artists in Context here.
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