Fall Course: Investigating Water

The first time I had been exposed to a liberal arts professor who directly asked us to produce studio work instead of writing a final paper was this fall with Nicole Merola in "Investigating Water: Connecting to Narragansett Bay."  While always being assumed by students and faculty alike, the thought of responding to liberal arts courses with studio work had never been directly initiated by a RISD professor.  Being a witness to the process, I can say that it was an extremely effective learning tool.  

The process to the final project was unique.   Nicole created a multidisciplinary environment, drawing from field trips, readings, class discussions, and journaling.  With so many different informing mediums, we discovered our personal relationship and passion in regards to the subject of water and the environment.   A sense of freedom allowed us to cultivate our growing interests, culminating in the studio with a final project.   In John Maeda’s surprise critique, all responses were geared towards how positively the multidisciplinary style can work for art and design students.   The style applies to how we would work in the real world, by gathering source material from several different places and using it directly in our work, which happened in this course.  

The course was unusual in the way it addressed the invisible boundaries that are rarely crossed by the professor or student in the normal flow of life at RISD. Our class was required to engage with local organizations through field trips and also create final projects in our studios, instead of in the usual Word or PowerPoint. While our professor, Nicole Merola, seemed to think it the natural path to incorporate studio practice with liberal arts, it had never been done quite in this way. On the night of the gallery opening, it was clear that there was fascination with the atypical nature of the course. We experienced John Maeda initiating a video recorded critique and response from students in the class and others who were attending the opening.

It was also great to see how other people, from different departments, worked along side myself. The design majors’ processes aren’t so different from our painting processes. The only difference is the source material we normally look at. Overall, it unified different material and different people through a final exhibit, where none of these have been integrated before.

How To Win by Steve & Steve

Sometimes there are those moments. When the questions you are grappling with at work blend seamlessly into the questions you are asking of your art and your life-as-art.

Wednesday was one such day. After working for a chunk of the afternoon on a workshop/ interventionist proposal for a conference on civic engagement and social justice, I schlepped up to Harvard for a presentation by Steve Lampert and Steve Duncombe on their project How to Win. More tag-team talk than presentation and more investigation than project, How to Win boils down to a very simple concept: what happens when you ask 20 self-described political artists:

How can you know when you’ve been successful?

The people they interviewed for the project, including Hans Haake, Emilie Clark, Dread Scott, took this seemingly straightforward question into all kinds of interlaced territories. When asked to define success in their artmaking, themes emerged such as:

Media Coverage

One-on-One Conversation

Making It Real

Opening Up New Spaces

Provoking Discussion

Recalibration of Reality

Laying the Groundwork for the Unimaginable

(Click through to see links to projects that might fall under these categories)

All of these are workable definitions...depending on your goals. And though the idea caused a great deal of discomfort for some people in the room, when making self-proclaimed political art, having an end goal is not only appropriate but necessary if any change is to happen.

For some artists then, the next question is "...and then what?" If my latest project gets a flood media coverage, how do I leverage that press? Or do I just pat myself on the back and move on to the next project?

If my artwork raises awareness about a particular issue but includes no subsequent action on the part of the viewer, can I still call it a success?

These are questions that keep me up at night in terms of why I have chose art & music as my way of making meaning in the world. Thinking of art as just one piece of a larger strategy towards making change doesn't mean that it shouldn't be taken seriously (and at the same time, having fun with it!)

However, coming back into the office on Thursday, I started to explore how these ideas can be applied to the work our office does here at RISD. We are a young program, barely a year and a half out of the gates. As such, our definition of success is shifting and all over the map. Is this perhaps part of the problem? When you declare specific goals you suddenly open up clear way to evaluate (and be evaluated) as to whether you are making progress. Being so new, is it even appropriate to be pushing an Office agenda, when we are just two amongst a much larger RISD.

Still, if I were to hazard definitions of success chosing from those listed above, I would string several of them together: opening up new spaces between RISD and the city of Providence by provoking discussion by creating platforms for group and one-on-one conversations. This definition is nonetheless incredibly vague...what would happen if instead we set up specific benchmarks such as:

Increasing public engagement course offerings on campus from 12 to 20...
Creating a network of Teaching Assistants who meet regularly to discuss the interconnections between their course work...
To have 1/2 of the freshmen from our Leadership Institute Orientation group taking on leadership roles by the time they are sophomores...
Increasing the number of off-site federal work study students by 10%...
Two new collaborative projects between classes and local non-profits, with appropriate orientation to the ethics of community-engaged art practices...

Specificity in this context is complicated. In order to move many of these initiatives ahead, there needs to be institutional buy-in that RISD is, and should be, a civically-minded community of learners and educators and administrators. In the meanwhile we will continue to push the conversations where we can and leverage the strength of our relationships here on campus and out in the community to propose more concrete definitions.

There is more to be done.

They came, they played...and then they ate

On Wednesday night last week, the Graduate Studies program hosted the Non-Orientation Non-Luncheon Grad School dinner in the CIT Building. The office was invited to create an intervention into the evening, which also included screening of James Bond films and a sitar-tabla performance by local Indian musicians.

One of the things our office has been thinking about lately is the insular nature of the various departments on campus, especially within the grad school. The rigor with which students are expected to approach their studio and class work often precludes some of the risk-taking inherent in working across disciplines and/or collaboratively.

And at the same time, we recognized that this event was going to be held during one of the busiest times of the year for students, so any intervention that took itself too seriously would probably not get too far off the ground.

As such, I proposed that the Office work with students from the various departments to collect unused or discarded materials from the various studios and invite students to play with these materials to build a collaborative, interdisciplinary installation on the 2nd floor of CIT. We chose the 2nd floor in part because it is where our Office is located, but also because the installation would be strategically placed near the bar and desserts!

The collection of detritus was greatly aided by the help of Grad Student Liaisons; one of the side perks of this project was our Office making connections with students and departments with whom we do not normally have much cause for interaction. All in all we gathered materials from all but three of the departments, arranging them by department on tables outside the play room (aka the conference room!)


The only instructions that the students were given were to select an object with the label indicating their department and that as they built into the installation, their object had to interact with objects from a department other than their own. They were given tools reminiscent of elementary school art classes with which to build; the rest was up to their imagination.


And build they did!


At least until the upstairs got so crowded that a group of students coopted the playroom as their dining room, essentially stalling the project in its tracks.

On the plus side, the installation served as a launching pad for many great conversations overheard and instigated over the course of the night around any number of relevant topics including:


* What does the Office of Public Engagement actually do?
* What scares people about working collaboratively? Especially in the context of a project-based curriculum?
* What kind of framework is necessary in order for collaboration to be embraced?
* How can different departments share what they are working on with others in different buildings and sides of campus?
* What classes already exist that ask students to make interdisciplinary artwork?

Earlier this week, I was sent a link to a parallel project that j. morgan puett is orchestrating in Chicago: http://www.deptstore.blogspot.com/ I was particularly struck by the expansiveness of the physical space available for this project. It set my thoughts to spinning...

AmeriCan Preserves

In the process of putting together the website for the collaborative public art project that I have been working on for the RISD/Brown Public Art: History, Theory, and Practice class.

Sarah, age 21, Wenham, MA

For the project we made 50 jars of homemade applesauce and are distributing them to friends and family and unfamiliars around the country in exchange for their recorded responses to the question: "What American values would you like to be preserved for the next 106 years?"

These recordings and photos of people holding their applesauce are being posted on the website: www.americanpreserves.tumblr.com

The Incomplete Manifesto

photo: Massive Change, MCA

Came across this "design mimics life" manifesto by the Bruce Mau Design group, one of the main organizers behind the Massive Change exhibition (also a worthy read/look). It is short, concise and full of relevant inquiries into how and why we make:

http://www.brucemaudesign.com/incomplete_manifesto.html

Architectural Response to PTSD

How do we, as individuals and communities, rebuild after traumatic events? Is it possible to design for healing to take place? What role does narrative play in architectural structures meant to house people who have experienced Post Traumatic Stress Disorder?

 

These are just a few of the questions addressed in a 2002 pamphlet entitled "Move: Sites of Trauma" by architect Johanna Salem Dickson. In this small booklet (which I just returned to the RISD library) Dickson and other architecture master students propose designs for the West Philadelphia neighborhood that was destroyed by bombing and fire on May 13, 1985. 

West Philadelphia, May 13, 1985    

11 people dead   

61 homes destroyed  

250 people left homeless

A city scarred

This story of willful destruction by a city government of its own neighborhood is one that is woefully undertold. On May 13, 1985, a bomb was dropped on a rowhouse in west Philadelphia that was the home of a radical organization called MOVE. The bomb, a powerful C-4 explosive illegally obtained by the Philadelphia Police Department from the FBI, ignited a can of gasoline on the roof which continued to burn freely for the next four hours, killing 11 MOVE members, destroying 61 homes and leaving 250 neighbors homeless. 

As horrific as these events were, it was the city's mishandling of the aftermath that has provoked many to view this moment in U.S. history as parallel to our country's handling of Vietnam War veterans.  By destroying the burnt ruins of the neighborhood and immediately replacing the rowhouses with makeshift replacements, Dickson argues that the people in the Cobb Creek neighborhood were never properly allowed to remember and thus heal from this traumatic event. In the pamphlet, she identifies five architectural elements which led to her designation of the Osage Street neighborhood as a "site of trauma": transformation, movement, modification, relation and memory. 

To varying degrees of success, the design proposals at the end of the pamphlet attempt to address these various elements.  What is interesting though is how each proposal includes components that allow for peoples' individual and collective narratives of what happened in the build up and aftermath of May 13th to find breathing space within the neighborhood's redesign. These narratives both acknowledge aspects of the MOVE Group's "back to nature" ideology, while also rebuilding sites for people to convene and retell these narratives in a communal space.  Additionally these proposals offer a fascinating intersection between the disciplines of architecture, psychology, history, and city planning. 

Filmmaker Khalo Matabane @ Brown, Tuesday November 12th

Brown University Africana Studies
and Modern Culture & Media Present:

South African Filmmaker
Khalo Matabane
Fitt Artist Resident

Screening of "When We Were Black" Episodes 1 & 2
Wednesday, November 12th at 12:00 p.m. with lunch (episode 1)
Wednesday, Novemner 12th at 6:00 p.m. (episode 2)
Conversation with the artist at 7:00 p.m.
Joukowsky Forum in The Watson Institute
111 Thayer Street

Part of the FOCUS ON AFRICA series.

Made possible by The Office Of The President, Brown University Creative Arts Council Lawton Wehle Fitt Endowment, Rites & Reason Theatre, and The Watson Institute For International Relations.

In these hard times...

Today I was reading an essay from the Swedish artist, Jorgen Svensson, in the collection, What We Want is Free: Generosity and Exchange in Recent Art, edited by Ted Purves.


Note: You can find this book at the RISD library - it's a great read!

In his essay, Jorgen lays out his reasons for how he came to make "social sculpture" as a young artist emerging from a painting background. One of his motivating factors was the economic downturn in the early 90s, which led to the disappearance of many contemporary art galleries. In his own words, "A group of yong artists realized that in order to work as artists and have their work be part of public discussions, they would need to find their own solutions and create new arenas for their art."

The context in which Svensson relocated his practice outside of the gallery framework echoes the shifting realities of the current economic crisis, though we have yet to see the full extent of the fallout. I am very interested in building discussions around what RISD, as an institution and community, can do to encourage students in imagining alternative ways of being creative producers and thinkers. And more than imagining, actually experimenting with these alternatives while within this environment which so intensely supports creative exploration. These kinds of conversations are being seeded in classes such as Design for Social Entrepeneurship - indeed students at RISD today are, on the whole, probably more socially conscious than artists of Svensson's age who were saturated in the hyper art star, market-oriented frame of reference.

At the same time, I feel that our office also can play a leadership role in promoting resources and opportunities for students to recontextualize their artmaking for today's realities. This fall we will convene a focus group of RISD community members to discuss some of the ways that our work can tie into the larger Creative Providence cultural plan being put together by the City of Providence. Leveraging new RISD/Providence project-based collaborations could be one way to combine our resources in smart ways and offer new opportunties for community engagement in action.

Nothing's Impossible

Last night, about a dozen intrepid souls gathered in the Tap Room to discuss the possibilities of public engagement at RISD. The scheduling was unfortunate in that Jim Drain was giving a lecture at the same hour... and it was a rainy night. And it was in the midst of mid-terms or post mid-terms.... And yet, I'm a little disappointed by the low turn out.

Actually, I'm disappointed by something else. Well, "disappointed" is probably the wrong word. I'm pondering something else.

In the past week, in conversations with undergraduate students, I've been confronted with a sense of incredulity when I've suggested that students become involved with the community -- or make work in the public sphere -- at the same time as they are enrolled as RISD students. The question, although phrased in many ways, is always the same: "How can you find the time given RISD's impossible schedule."

Let me preface my next thoughts. I don't think everyone at RISD should be doing public work. Some people won't want to and some probably just don't have the affinity or the predisposition. That's fine. Yet, I also hear that people would like to be connecting with a world beyond the campus in significant ways -- but there's no time. It's the "no time" thing I want to address.

We make time or those things that matter to us and learn to manage or prioritize those things that don't.

Last night we discussed procrastination a bit. We talked about the way it can be easy to get sucked into TV "while thinking about working in the studio." While everyone is different, I know I get sucked into TV for three reasons: 1. there's something compelling in the world (like the current election); 2. I'm completely exhausted (like when I have the flu); and 3. when I'm avoiding tasks that don't matter to me (like when I'm thinking about doing something someone has told me to do but about which I have no passion).

I know it's possible to integrate significant and meaningful community practice with a RISD education. I did it when I was a student (and when far fewer faculty "got" the value of it than there are today) and I know many RISD graduates (and current students) who are doing it.

The language of the "impossible" -- as in "it's impossible given RISD's curriculum" -- does two things: 1.) it provides a polite way of saying "I don't want to do this, I like things the way they are"; and 2.) it inhibits others from believing that they might be able to do something outside the culture of the curriculum.

There's nothing wrong with committing oneself to a rigorous and intensive life in the studio. However, it's not the only way that people build a rigorous art practice. The language of "the impossible" simply limits the possibilities of creative practice within this community. How do we move beyond the language of the impossible to an acknowledgment of infinite possibility and creativity?

Saying "I Do!"

Saying "I Do!"

Celebrate the Victory Next Door;
Forge Ahead for Marriage Equality in Rhode Island

On Friday November 14 at the RISD Auditorium in Providence, Rhode Island, the Marriage Equality Rhode Island Education Fund (MERIEF) will host a celebration of the recent landmark decision in Connecticut allowing gay and lesbian couples to marry featuring the Rhode Island premiere of the newly released documentary, Saving Marriage.

The movie premiere free and open to the public; donations welcome. Doors open 7:30pm.

Visit http://marriageequalityri.wordpress.com/ to see the trailer.
For a limited number of advance donations of $25 or more per person you will receive reserved "I Do!" seating; tickets to a pre-show reception from 6:30-7:30p with GLAD, Love Makes A Family and key participants in the CT decision; a chance to win a pair of Orchestra tickets to see the new Adam Bock comedy, "The Receptionist" at Trinity Rep Theatre on January 11, 2009; hors'doeuvres, and a champagne toast.

To reserve "I Do" tickets contact Susan MacNeil at 401-463-5368, x339 or via Email (smacneil@marriageequalityri.org)

Thoughts on Tactical Sound Gardens

Yesterday I slipped upstairs to attend a Digital+Media talk by Mark Shepard about his project Tactical Sound Garden [TSG] Tool Kit.

Overall I left the talk feeling as though the project falls short of its potential as a sonic intervention into urban spaces. Installing these gardens at international new media festivals seems to stymie the opportunities for sustained engagement by a community of users. The "drop and run" nature of installing these sites also limits Shepard's ability to observe how people are interacting with the space beyond what he can glean from the data logs.

What, for example, might he observe if he was able to put together a class at the University of New York Buffalo (where he has already installed a garden) that specifically looked at the new kinds of play that emerge once people get over the novelty of the tool and begin to landscape the site with greater intention? How might people employ the garden as a site for communicating with one another, sharing information about upcoming events, spreading gossip, diverting traffic, etc.

So while, for me, the project didn't push itself quite far enough on an experiential level, on a conceptual level his thinking echoes many of the questions raised by the projects supported by the Office of Public Engagement (which is terribly exciting!)

Here are some of those questions:

If space is something that people produce together such that it takes on highly charged social and political resonances, then what are the ways in which these new spatial conditions can present new kinds of social practice?

How can sound be used in order to break through the hypervisual context of our cities?

What are the differences between strategic and tactical approaches to problem-solving in the artistic but also organizational realm? (his distinction was great - strategy takes an overview perspective that relies on distance, creating grand claims that he called the "zenith of arrogance" while tactics can't be separated from the object but instead are a temporal seizing of the other...like a parasite, tactics depend on a relationship with their host question/problem)

How can community be built around a particular practice (in this case, sound artists who came together to build the sound files that were used for the Zurich version of the sound garden) rather than, in the new-genre public art model, assuming or adopting a particular, but possibly fictitious community to work with?

***

One thing I have been appreciating about being at RISD is the discovery that interrelated conversations are taking place in any number of departments on campus. Our office's challenge is how to be increasingly aware of these intersections and how to connect the people who are asking similar questions of their own practice. To do so requires on our part a willingness to step out of our intellectual and creative comfort areas and into new zones of learning. So note to self: get out more often - it will aid our work on both personal and professional levels.

Breaking the Code: public engagement at risd

Nelson Mandela's Leadership Wisdom

Nelson Mandela turned 90 earlier this year; a milestone that has launched a number of initiatives honoring his life, including RISD's own Mandela: Honoring the Legacy.

Our Office has been working together with the Office of Multicultural Affairs and the Office of International Affairs to create a campus-wide dialog around the qualities that define Mandela’s life and work, connecting these to the creative practice and social awareness of students and faculty.

This summer, Time Magazine published an article by Mandela's biographer, Richard Stengel entitled Mandela: His 8 Lessons of Leadership. The article focuses on the ways in which Mandela was able to enact deep and lasting change in his country through a nuanced leadership style that equally employed symbolism, strategy, and fearlessness (plus five more tactics!) I am struck by how many of these practices are also at play in a strong collaborative creative process.

This initiative hope to invite opportunities for dialogue through a diverse program which includes: a spring symposium entitled History + Memory: Public Encounters through Public Discourse, films, visiting artist talks, academic course offerings, social gatherings, and more. Themes explored include: Freedom, Reconciliation, Collaboration, Human Rights, Dignity, Integrity, Tradition and Diversity.


Our hope is that this year-long focus will bring together the many facets of the RISD and Providence communities to contextualize the values maintained throughout his legacy to the work we do as artists, academics and neighbors, and understand how those values relate to global, contemporary social justice issues.

Stay tuned for the launch of the new website later this month: www.honoringthelegacy.org.

Play Space Collaborate

This month marks the beginning of a new collaboration between RISD, the Learning Community Charter School, and New Urban Arts.

September 26th saw the official opening of the Learning Community’s new play space (you can read more about that here,), after months and months of conversations and committee meetings between students, staff, and parents of TLC. The school selected Laurencia Strauss, a recent RISD graduate from Landscape Architecture department, to synthesize this mass of information into a cohesive design.


Upon receiving an invitation to the opening, I had gotten the idea in my head to make a short experiential video of the kids’ movements and play, but rain and chaos deterred the initial plan. Instead, at the opening I entered into a conversation with Laurencia and Kath Connelly, the school’s Communications and Outreach Coordinator, about how to share the missing pieces of the story of this collaboration to the larger audience of RISD and beyond.

While much has been made of the entrepreneurial spirit of the six fourth-graders who formed the Playground Committee and were responsible for the letter to the CEO of Loews, which resulted in a $110,000 grant, we wanted to highlight the elements of the collaborative process and Laurencia’s own artistic vision which moved the project from seed to completion. The question became how to expand on the idea of a more traditional reporting piece to a video that captures the dynamic learning experience that underwrote this entire project.

To get started, Kath invited Andrew Oesch, one of the New Urban Arts artist mentor fellows, and I to spend an afternoon perched in the second floor stairwell of the Learning Community observing how the different classes were using the new playground. While it felt strangely big-brotheresque whenever a kid would glance up and catch us staring back from the second floor window, this perspective allowed us to witness the overall flow of movement around the playground while still being close enough to catch the nuances of individual group dynamics.
What did we see? Fifth graders, followed by the kindergarteners, explode out onto the playground, most racing straight up the hill. Some made a beeline for the sandbox, and still others just ran a few laps before settling into a game of dodge ball, basketball, or just plain “kick the ball!”

There was a constant shifting of energy – at one point the entire playground clustered en masse in the matter of seconds (was someone hurt? was it a big bug?), only to disperse as quickly once they’d diagnosed the situation. There were also diverse ways in which different age groups used the same spaces. For instance, the kindergarteners piled and sorted leaves on top of the wood stump tables on the stage (girls at one “table” and boys at the other), while the older students used that space for one-on-one conversations (also gender-divided). Older kids had figured out that their jackets made great surfboards for going down the slide faster – kneeling, standing, face-first – while the younger groups proceeded in more orderly fashion.

There really isn’t enough time to go into all of the amazing things we watched transpire, but needless to say Andrew and I were wide-eyed and captivated by the sheer amount of human energy being exerted in a relatively small amount of space!

When Kath joined us, we served as a kind of sounding board for many of the reflections she’s been processing over the last year of this project. As the person who worked most closely with Laurencia, she was particularly attuned to the finer subtleties of the dynamics that played out over the year long collaborative process.

Some of the points she brought up will be great to develop further during the video interviews. These include: the pedagogical overlap with the built environment, the importance of setting up basic parameters in the built environment while also letting go of how the space gets used (both for the designer and the school,) unintended uses of the playground and how the neighborhood has embraced the space as a community park, how Laurencia took abstract concepts that came from the kids and staff and created spaces and objects flexible enough to handle multiple uses, etc.

Kath also introduced us to Ms. Kathy, the third grade teacher whose classroom overlooks the playground. At the beginning of the year, Ms. Kathy quickly recognized that the students’ attention was being drawn to the giant colorful space outside their windows. Her ingenious response was to build into the curriculum a journaling project in which the students wrote about and then investigated their continued wonderings about the new playground. How to employ this new space as a kind of learning lab is one of the exciting new arenas the school will be exploring over the course of the next several months.

The next day, I met up with Laurencia, which helped to build upon the conversations that I’d been having with Andrew, Kath, and Ms. Kathy. There is a shared sense that this video piece can be a way for Laurencia to engage in her own reflection about the process of building the play space. She had been so involved in the day-to-day logistics that only now is she beginning to articulate what actually happened.

Specifically we spoke at length about what makes an artist well suited to collaborative or community-engaged art practices and that delicate dance between personal vision and incorporating multiple perspectives and desires. This led to an interesting conversation about how universities can best support the students on campus who are drawn to a collaborative mode of art making. Which also raises the contrary question of whether a school environment is the most appropriate place to explore/introduce community-based projects at all.

Given the artificial timeframe of semesters and the focus on individual creative vision and a strong commitment to studio practice, is it possible to realize collaborative projects where on-going relationship-building and deep listening are prerequisites to the project’s success?
This I believe is one of the many challenges in building and sustaining university-community relationships in collaborative projects. For this specific project, Kath’s role as mediator will prove to be invaluable. Through her clear articulation of how the school emboldens students to build literary and communication fluency, we are better able to create a platform for new learning opportunities by all parties.

Providence Art Windows

Call For Proposals-Due December 12, 2008

Providence Art Windows Seeks Art and Art Installations for the 2009 season

Seeking art and art installation proposals for 10 windows in Downtown Providence for the 2009 season. Site-specific is preferred, pre-existing accepted; 2D or 3D. Some spaces are raw, and others are located within established businesses. Site visits encouraged before proposal is written.

Jury includes Diana Gaston, Associate Curator, Fidelity Investments. First round will begin 03/15/09, and others to be determined. Deadline: postmarked 12/12/08. $100 stipend available. Send 8-10 jpegs on disk, printed 1 page proposal, image list,resume, and SASE to: Rebecca Siemering, PAW Director, 545 Pawtucket Avenue, Box 206, Pawtucket, RI, 02860. No email entries.

(Images must be in standard JPEG (.jpg) format, and should be no more than 800 KB in size. Images should be roughly 600 x 900 pixels. No Power Point presentations accepted. Note that this work is on view to the public 24 hrs a day, so think accordingly when submitting your proposal. Questions? Find out more about the project at http://providenceartwindows.blogspot.com or e-mail rebecca.siemering@gmail.com.


Providence Art Windows exhibits juried art and art installations to fill 10 empty retail spaces in Downtown Providence. Our shows change three times a year and feature local and nationally known arts artists, juried by local residents, downtown artists and professionals. Providence Art Windows adds to the walking experience in the revitalized DownCity area for locals and tourists alike. Providence Art Windows is generously supported by The Providence Foundation, Fidelity Investments, the City of Providence, Rhode Island State Council on the Arts and Verizon.

Equity Action grants

Equity Action, a fund of The Rhode Island Foundation, is currently accepting applications for its large grants program. Award amounts range from $2,500 - $15,000. To be eligible, you must be a community-based organization that provides services to support individuals and/or families within Rhode Island’s lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer communities.

The application deadline is Wednesday, October 15 and awards will be granted in December 2008. Visit us at www.equityaction.org to learn more. This year alone, the Equity Action Fund has awarded more than $44,000 to the community.

For more information, call The Rhode Island Foundation at 401.274.4564.

2d Life

RISD 2d Life -- an art supply and materials recycling resource for the RISD community -- is up and ready for business.

job posting

University of Washington, Tacoma: INTERDISCIPLINARY ARTS AND SCIENCES

Intermedia/Community-Based Arts Practice
Assistant Professor

Interdisciplinary Arts & Sciences (IAS) at the University of Washington Tacoma invites applications for a full-time Assistant Professor in Internet/ Graphic Arts as part of the forming Arts in Community Program. We are seeking an intermedia artist with experience teaching interdisciplinary arts and a community-based arts practice who can teach from a content- and conceptually-focused perspective. Other areas of teaching/research may include video, performance, installation, sound art, murals, cyberarts theory and/or site-specific temporal works. The applicant should have significant community arts experience and a commitment to assist in building local community ties; a key responsibility of this position includes coordinating cultural collaborations with the local community. The successful candidate will hold an MFA and have taught a minimum of two years at the university level. The class load will be 6 courses a year with the expectation of teaching interdisciplinary arts studio courses, both upper and lower division. The candidate should be able to demonstrate creative accomplishments commensurate with rank. All University of Washington Tacoma faculty engage in teaching, research, and service in an interdisciplinary context.

Appointment effective September 16, 2009.

One of three campuses of the University of Washington, UWT is a metropolitan university that currently offers undergraduate and graduate education to students of a wide variety of ages and backgrounds in the South Puget Sound region. In the fall of 2006, the campus admitted its first freshman cohort. The campus is located in both new and historic facilities in downtown Tacoma. For information about UWT, see our website at http://www.tacoma.washington.edu/.

All materials should be submitted electronically to iasearch@u.washington.edu. Your materials should include: a letter delineating your interests and qualifications, a description of research interests and teaching philosophy, a curriculum vitae, a web link containing visual documentation of Intermedia and community-based practice, evidence of teaching effectiveness that may include a class syllabus, and three letters of reference.

Screening of credentials will begin January 5, 2009 and will continue until the position is filled. For additional information, please contact Beverly Naidus, bnaidus@u.washington.edu or by telephone at (253) 692-4623.

The University of Washington is an affirmative action, equal opportunity employer. The University is building a culturally diverse faculty and staff and strongly encourages applications from women, racial/ethnic minority group members, individuals with disabilities, and veterans. This position is contingent on funding.

dear providence: 10 Oct, 5 PM, 743 Westminster

cool job

Director of Organizational Advancement
Worcester Center for Crafts
25 Sagamore Road
Worcester, MA 01605
508-753-8183
www.worcestercraftcenter.org

Description: Founded in 1856, the Worcester Center for Crafts is one of the oldest non-profit institutions for craft study in the United States. Possessing a 150-year commitment to craft education, the Craft Center is poised to expand and is working strategically to strengthen its financial base, rebuild its human resources, and enhance its programming and audience reach. The organization is seeking a dynamic, entrepreneurial, fundraising professional capable of leading a million-dollar capital campaign (nearly 50% raised to date) to support the organization’s strategic plan and advancement of its mission, “to sustain craft as a vital part of our world.” This key decision-maker will be responsible for soliciting major gifts from individuals and foundations, working with Trustee committees, organizing cultivation events, garnering sponsorships, and supervising the Annual Fund and individual and corporate membership programs. Reports to the Executive Director.

Position Duties:
Direct the organization’s current million-dollar capital campaign (nearly 50% raised to date).
Design, implement and manage all ongoing fundraising activities including annual giving, individual and corporate membership, endowment, sponsorships, major gifts, and special projects/events.

Initiate and manage all strategies and activities of donor/funder identification, cultivation, solicitation and relations.

Develop grant proposals, concept papers and reports for foundations and government agencies.
Prepare and pitch corporate sponsorship packages.
Create new, online opportunities for generating revenue.
Provide day-to-day supervision of the Development Associate, overseeing office support systems, donor/funder research, and gift/pledge activity.

Work with and coach trustee volunteers to meet aggressive fundraising goals.
Initiate and oversee production of all collateral material and communications for the development program.

Qualifications: This is a senior level position requiring 5-10 years of fundraising experience, particularly with major gifts. An arts organization background a real plus. This is a key position, joining an organization with the ambition of leading innovation in craft for the 21st century, while respecting the cultural traditions of a global creative community. The right person will passionately align with the Center’s strategic goals and direct an aggressive fundraising program to support the organization’s growth. History of success with 5 and 6 figure solicitations, donor/funder cultivation and relations, and a demonstrated ability to prioritize and coordinate multiple projects. Experienced in analyzing and summarizing complex financial documents and adept at creating and managing database systems (knowledge of Sage50 software advantageous). Superior oral and written communication skills a must to effectively convey the Craft Center’s mission, programs and priorities to a wide variety of audiences.

Apply by: October 31, 2008
Salary: Competitive Salary & Benefits

New Logo for the Office

Call it "designer-envy" but since arriving at RISD, I've been struggling to come up with a logo that will convey the mission behind the work we do here at the Office of Public Engagement. The principal metaphor I keep returning to is that of the bridge, linking the RISD community to the people, neighborhoods, and organizations that make Providence such a vital city.

So here is my first attempt at capturing that, albeit in an abstract way:

In other news, the Office spent part of this afternoon over at the Mathewson Street Church, dropping off cameras in preparation for the Arts Reach workshops which starts today. For the next six weeks, they will work together with HeadsUp Arts and adults from a local HIV clinic in a series of painting and photography workshops.

The results of this collaboration will be exhibited at the URI Providence Campus gallery as part of POSITIVELY AWARE, a mixed media exhibit and performance project.

Anyone interested in getting involved in this project as a volunteer artist, please contact Peter at phocking (at) g.risd.edu.

last weekend and this

In the interest of sharing, here is a real short list of projects that the Office of Public Engagement and friends have been playing around with these last couple of weeks.

Parade for the Future - On Saturday, September 13th, a strange blue wave of mermaids, eco-survivors, fish, and octopi descended upon the Boston Common as part of Platform 2's Parade for the Future. Together this collection of artists, activists, and a couple of drunk tourists wound their way through the Commons, celebrating what hasn’t happened yet, notably the impending submergence of the city under water due to climate change. Members of the parade tied blue ribbons onto landmarks throughout the Commons, marking the future high-water line of Boston in 100 years (in some spots, leaving the current landscape 9 feet under water!)

You can view images and read a first-hand account of the parade here. Platform2: Art and Social Engagement is an experimental forum series about creative practices at the intersection of social issues. Platform2 is organized by Catherine D'Ignazio (RISD faculty, Digital+Media) & Savic Rasovic of iKatun, Andi Sutton and Jane D. Marsching.


Block Party! - Andrew Oesch and Jen Cozzens (both RISD alums and mentors at New Urban Arts) are spending this week furiously building cardboard blocks to stage a city-wide free-for-all construction party in Worcester, MA. “Block Party” is an offshoot of “Magic City Repairs” (a cardboard-and-paper city building project carried out in Providence and in Worcester in 2007.)

The impetus behind this large-scale public installation is to invite neighbors, kids, and visitots to imagine what a city block could look like if they themselves were given the bricks and mortar to build.

You can check out their blog all week here.

Ways to engage this fall

Here is a short-list of opportunities for RISD students to start making an impact this fall.

One Day Volunteer Opportunity - The grand community opening of the Chace Center is taking place on September 27th! The RISD Museum is expecting about 8,000 people and needs student volunteers to give 3-4 hours of their time! Jobs might include:

- greeting and directing visitors
- monitoring workshops and performances
- encouraging guests to participate in the day's activities and events

If you are interested in volunteering your time on this exciting day, please contact Cara Blaine in the Education Department of the Museum at cblaine@risd.edu.

Longer-term opportunities

Project Open Door seeks Undergraduate Fellow interested in working with urban teens on their art and design portfolios. This is a 7-week fellowship between September 22 and December 13 with a commitment of 8 hours per week during after-school classes. There is a $1,500 stipend for this position. For more information contact Nancy Sagian at 401-454-6720 or nsafian@risd.edu.

Mathewson Street United Methodist Church and the RISD Office of Public Engagement seek a RISD photography student to lead an 8-week community arts workshop. Working with a group of adults, the workshop will use photography to explore the complexities of living with HIV/AIDS. Interested parties should contact Peter Hocking at 401-413-027 or phocking@g.risd.edu.

Welcome

We've established this blog to document public engagement activities at RISD and in the Providence community. We'll include reflections about what we see, postings of events we hear about and opportunities we encounter.