Hamburg’s Trashcam Project

Hamburg´s garbagemen create portraits of their city in the Trashcam Project – with their garbage containers. Standard 1.100 litre containers are transformed to giant pinhole cameras. With these cameras the binmen take pictures of their favourite places to show the beauty and the changes of the city they keep clean every day.

The Trashcam Project was developed by Christoph Blaschke, Mirko Derpmann, Scholz & Friends Berlin and the Hamburg sanitation department. Special thanks to Hamburg based photographer Matthias Hewing (www.matthiashewing.de/) for his professional advice and the challenging lab work with the giant negatives.

See images from the project here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/thetrashcamproject/

Artist talk by Betsey Biggs on “The Providence Postcard Project”

Archaeology and the homeless community: Turbo Island, Bristol

Brown to host International Symposium on Urban Cultural Heritage & Creative Practice

A  Discussion of International Approaches

Heritage professionals from around the world converge on Brown’s campus for a day of conversation.

Cape Town – Dublin – Hong Kong – Istanbul – Providence – York

What is heritage, and what forms does it take in an urban environment?  How are creative practices affected by, and how do they form the urban contexts in which they take place?  How do we look at these issues in Providence, and how are people dealing with them in cities around the world?

On Friday, January 27, 2012 Brown University will host a symposium to discuss issues of Urban Cultural Heritage and Creative Practice.  All events will be held at the John Nicholas Brown Center (357 Benefit Street). The morning session, held from 9:00 am to 12:00, will include presentations from our international partners:

• Cape Town: Nick Shepherd (University of Cape Town, Center for African Studies)
• Dublin: Pat Cooke (University College Dublin, School of Art History and Cultural Policy and Director, Arts Management and Cultural Policy)
• Hong Kong: Oscar Ho (Chinese University of Hong Kong, Department of Cultural and Religious Studies and Director, Arts and Heritage)
• Istanbul: Lucienne Thys-Senocak (Koç University, Department of Archaeology and History of Art)
• York: John Schofield (University of York, Department of Archaeology and Director, Cultural Heritage Management)

The afternoon session will provide an opportunity for students and faculty to engage in conversation about these issues through a series of small, break-out meetings organized around participant interests.  These will take place from 1:00 pm to 4:00 pm, with lunch provided.

The Urban Cultural Heritage and Creative Practice international research collaborative is organized by Ian Alden Russell, Curator, David Winton Bell Gallery in collaboration with Prof. Sue Alcock, the Joukowsky Institute of Archaeology; Prof. Steven Lubar, the John Nicholas Brown Center for Public Humanities and Cultural Heritage; Prof. Rebecca Schneider, the Department of Theatre Arts and Performance Studies.

Launch of the Providence Postcard Project

On January 15, 2012, at AS220 in downtown Providence, artist Betsey Biggs launched her Providence Postcard Project.

The project explores the familiar souvenir medium of postcards as a source of reflection by the residents of Providence on what meanings the city holds. Beginning this week, the project will be distributing pre-addressed, postage-paid postcards featuring photographs taken by Biggs during her visits to the neighborhoods of Providence. Local residents and members of the general public are invited to pick up postcards at Providence Community Library locations throughout the city, write to the Postcard Project, and share their own stories about the many places of Providence.

Biggs has designed the project to explore the many layers of both memories and imaginative associations that particular places in Providence hold for its residents. By using a combination of person-to-person engagement and postal circulation, the project spotlights the ideas of exchange and correspondence and their roles in the production of historical narratives. In the artist’s own words, “Cultural heritage is a palimpsest of recollections, associations, and stories; I have a particular interest in canonizing the personal, ephemeral, inconsequential stories that are often left out of heritage practices, and hope to create something beautiful out of these evanescent materials.”

Starting January 27, the images and stories of the returned postcards will be on display in the lower lobby gallery of the Granoff Center for the Creative Arts on Brown University’s campus, 154 Angell Street. Join us for the opening party to meet the artist, pick up a postcard and share your own stories on January 27 from 5:30 pm – 7:30 pm.

This commission has been realized as part of the Urban Cultural Heritage and Creative Practice international research collaborative organized by Ian Alden Russell, Curator, David Winton Bell Gallery in collaboration with Prof. Sue Alcock, the Joukowsky Institute of Archaeology; Prof. Steven Lubar, the John Nicholas Brown Center for Public Humanities and Cultural Heritage; Prof. Rebecca Schneider, the Department of Theatre Arts and Performance Studies. More information is available from: https://urbanheritages.wordpress.com/providence/providence-projects/the-postcard-project/

“Repo History”

REPOhistory existed from 1989-2000

REPOhistory began in Manhattan in 1989 as a study group of artists, scholars, teachers, and writers focused on the relationship of history to contemporary society. It grew into a forum for developing public art projects based on history and a platform for creating them. For the past ten years REPOhistory’s goal has been “To retrieve and relocate absent historical narratives at specific locations in the New York City area through counter-monuments, actions, and events”. The work is informed by a multicultural re-reading of history which focuses on issues of race, gender, class and sexuality. We choose to create public art because we wanted to expand the audience for art by going outside the confines of the museum and gallery structure. By choosing to create work with strong, alternative social commentary we are drawing on a tradition in art that is often ignored; the legacy of the Berlin Dadaists, Russian Constructivists, the New York Photo League and contemporary organizations like Political Art Documentation/Distribution (PAD/D), Group Material and Grand Fury.

Through 6 major public projects and many smaller events, REPOhistory has continued to pursue this goal as an artist/scholar cooperative, along the way adding to its goals “to raise questions about the construction of history, to provide multiple viewpoints that encourage viewers to think critically, to explore how histories and their interpretations affect us today, and to engage with specific communities in order to facilitate their efforts to construct their own public histories”.

We believe that the arts are important to all aspects of society. The relationship between art, culture and society is often confused, vague and ambiguous. In the USA it has sparked the “Cultural Wars” of the 1980s and the early 1990s. Even today there are many members of the US Congress and Senate who want to abolish the National Endowment for the Art and the National Endowment for the Humanities. The arts will always be controversial. Societies change and the arts can be a powerful way of expressing these changes. However, the arts are essential for helping individuals find their place within society and for shaping a collective cultural identity.

Current Members Neill Bogan, Jim Costanzo, Tom Klem, Janet Koenig, Lisa Maya Knauer, Cynthia Liesenfeld, Chris Neville, Jayne Pagnucco, Leela Ramotar, Greg Sholette & George Spencer

Lapsed Members Ayishe Abraham, Todd Ayoung, Stephanie Basch, Betty-Sue Hertz, Carin Kuoni, Kara Lynch, Alan Michelson, Mark O’Brien, Lise Prown, Megan Pugh, Tess Timoney, Sarah Vogwill, Dan Wiley & Jody Wright

Steering Committee Neill Bogan, Jim Costanzo, Tom Klem, Lisa Maya Knauer & Cynthia Liesenfeld

REPOweb Jim Costanzo, creative director, Cynthia Liesenfeld, WebMistress
web developers: Sharon Denning, Russet Lederman, David Sansone with additional help from John Manick

With much sorrow we mourn the passing of our friend and colleague Ed Eisenberg.

—-
Check out their work here: http://www.repohistory.org/work.html

“The I-75 Project” by Norm Magnusson

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

I just happened upon a rather intriguing public art intervention project by artist Norm Magnusson. The “I-75 Project” found Magnusson installing industry grade public historical markers along Interstate 75. While the form and aesthetic of the markers are consistent with traditional, institutional, “authorized” markers, the texts Magnusson has written for the markers exploit this familiarity with historical authorization to give voice to critical perspectives on culture in the United States. The moments recorded are neither “important”, “singular” or “historical”. Rather they are an acknowledge of the monumental that arises out of an accumulation of moments of everyday, overlooked and omitted cultural experience.

Read more about the project here: http://www.aldrichart.org/exhibitions/past/magnusson.php

Magnusson’s project is most reminiscent of the approaches of Repo History to a collaborative and meaningful engagement between history and contemporary art. Read more about Repo History here: https://urbanheritages.wordpress.com/2011/12/05/repo-history/

It is also reminiscent of the work of Shaun Slifer and his Howling Mob Society project in Pittsburgh. Read a post about his project here: https://urbanheritages.wordpress.com/2011/12/05/the-howling-mob-society/