Socially Engaged Adventures

Great site addressing important questions:

// Can socially engaged art do more harm than good?

// Are there ethical responsibilities for social art?

// Does socially engaged art have to do civic or public good?

// Can there be transdisciplinary approaches to contemporary art making that would contribute to issues such as urban planning and sustainability?

// As both urban planning and contemporary art imagine new worlds, how can art projects be seen as potential models for living? 

http://historyofartandsocialpractice.tumblr.com

(Sally, thank you for the link!)

International Award for Participatory Art

http://www.artepartecipativa.it/e-pablo-helguera-il-vincitore-della-prima-edizione-del-premio-internazionale-di-arte-partecipativa

Pablo Helguera has won the first edition of the International Award for Participatory Art. The Award, a biennial project promoted by the Legislative Assembly of the Region Emilia-Romagna, is dedicated to artists with an outstanding experience in participatory art projects. The three finalists of the award, chosen from a list of 18 artists nominated by curators, critics and artists from all over the world, had to develop a project idea to be realised in the city of Bologna, Italy in 2011. Helguera’s project was chosen from a short list of three proposals submitted by the winner and the other two finalists Mel Chin and Jeanne van Heeswijk. The award consists in the prize of 15,000 EUR and a budget of 30,000 EUR to create the project.

Pablo Helguera (Mexico City, 1971) is a New York based artist whose work focuses on history, pedagogy, sociolinguistics and anthropology in formats such as lectures, museum displays, performance and written fiction. His project The School of Panamerican Unrest, a nomadic think-tank, physically crossed the continent by car from Anchorage to Tierra del Fuego. He has exhibited widely and has been recipient of the Guggenheim Fellowship and the Creative Capital grant. He is the author of several books including The Pablo Helguera Manual of Contemporary Art Style, Theatrum Anatomicum (and other performance lectures), and What in the World. 

Helguera’s project for Bologna, called Ælia Media, consists in creating a nomadic cultural journalism institute and broadcast center, as an alternative arts multimedia channel. The project will function in two capacities: one, as a training ground for currently active and aspiring cultural producers, and second, as a temporary broadcast program in a variety of media (video, radio, print and web) with a primary emphasis on user-generated content (consumer-generated media) using live participation methods as well as online social networks.

The project will derive its strategies from processes of learning, self-organization, and media production that have local roots but with a contemporary emphasis and outlook. The “Ælia Media Corporation” will try to be a cabinet of curiosities of cultural journalism, searching for the extraordinary in the ordinary, rediscovering the wealth of cultural production in Bologna, and juxtaposing opinions on specific issues, tying them with larger issues internationally.

“The idea of the kiosk”, explains Helguera “is firstly to provide visibility of the project in the city and secondly to create a location in the form of a ‘third place’. Occasionally the kiosk will “travel” to other parts of the city to reach other communities and to draw attention to particular issues in the city”.

The award was announced by an international jury comprising Julia Draganovic, award curator, Rudolf Frieling, curator at the Media Arts Department at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Alfredo Jaar, one of the most influential artists on the international contemporary art scene, Bert Theis, artist, curator and co-founder of out-Office for Urban Transformation and Isola Art Center, Milan and Luigi Benedetti, Director General of the Legislative Assembly of the Region of Emilia-Romagna. The jury announced the winner at Arte Fiera – Bologna Art Fair and gave a preview of the winner’s participatory project, the first of its kind, to be created at Bologna in the course of 2011 

>> via e-flux

I am based in Parson Cross, a regenerational area of Sheffield, for my Yorkshire Artspace starter studio for Engaged Practice placement. The studios are not ready until July so I have decided that I need an alternative space to start to get to know the community.

I have just had a really successful meeting at Parson Cross library. They have agreed to let me be ‘artist in residence’ every Wednesday until mid May.

I will be using my time at the library to talk to local people, introduce them to what I do and what I am planning to do as an artist in their area. I will use the time to try out different methods of engagement and to build relationships. I will also use relevant books from the library in my work there as a way of promoting what the library has to offer in exchange for using the space.

My practice is currently focused around using guerilla (or grafitti) knitting and crochet as a way of engaging communities. I will offer people the chance to join in with my activity. Creating small knit and crocheted pieces that we will go and install around the area. I will also use my time in Parson Cross to install pieces of my own around the place.

I have recently made some giant crochet and fabric craft daffodils for a shop window display in another part of Sheffield. The daffodils were used to signal the start of spring and have been causing quite a stir in the shop and really engaging passers by. Once they come down from the shop window, in a couple of weeks, I will take them to the library in Parson Cross and install them there as a way of announcing my arrival at the library and the start of my residency.

The staff at the library have been very helpful and enthusiastic about the idea of my residency. They seem to have strong links with a wide range of the community and they are keen to work alongside me in this venture.

Ruthie Ford

Exhibition exploring school as a space for social interaction!

School Days: The Look of Learning exhibition at Lewis Glucksman Gallery in Cork, Ireland.

http://www.glucksman.org/schooldays.html

School Days explores the experiences and environments of school, college and university, through the work of nine contemporary artists. The exhibition emphasises school not only as a place of organised learning, but as a space of social interaction and self-awareness that often occurs outside the classroom and exam hall: such as in playgrounds, canteens, and in corridors.