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Neighbourhood Spaces Interview with Artist-in-Residence Ariana Jacob

Next in the Neighbourhood Spaces (NS) mini-doc series is an interview with artist-in-residence Ariana Jacob. She has been staying with us at CIVIC Space for the past month, and we’ve been lucky enough to catch occasional glimpses into the work she’s been doing. As a Neighbourhood Spaces artist-in-residence, Ariana has been based in Windsor’s Unemployed Help Centre and Tecumseh Mall. She has also been having conversations with the people she encounters on the streets, sidewalks and in transit as she travels from downtown Windsor to her community sites by bus. She has also made a series of great silkscreened posters that you may have seen on our blog or around town.

Currently living in Portland, OR, Ariana makes artwork that uses conversation as medium and as a subjective research method. WORKING / NOT WORKING explores the basic realities of what people do for work these days, the place work has in their lives, and how contemporary work and economic realities are affecting how we understand ourselves.

Drawing on Studs Terkel’s classic book, “Working” this project revisits his approach to the role work has in our lives considering how much more precarious work conditions have become since Stud’s 1970s.

You can view more of her work at: www.publicwondering.com

Also, please visit the NS Blog for more updates: www.acwr.net/ns-blog

NS is a collaborative partnership between the Arts Council – Windsor & Region, Broken City Lab and The City of Windsor (“the Collaborative”). This program is made possible through the generous financial support from the Ontario Trillium Foundation.

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Watershed+ Residency Phase 1 (August 7th-15th)

Watershed+

Watershed+ Residency (Phase 1)

August 7th – 15th, 2013 at Ralph Klein Park and the Surrounding Area, Calgary, Alberta

Watershed+, hosted by the Utilities and Environment Protections department of the City of Calgary, is a unique art program which embeds artists and their individual processes within the Calgary watershed. We will be heading to Ralph Klein Park for Phase 1 of the project this Wednesday, August 7th, to visit the studio and surrounding wetlands, and to start thinking through our project happening next summer. We’ll be staying until August 15th, during which time we’ll be asking many questions, exploring the social and physical boundaries of the region, and using this information to inform our future project at Ralph Klein Park. Stay tuned for more info!

Unfortunately, CIVIC SPACE WILL BE CLOSED UNTIL AUGUST 19th, but please register and stop by for the ACWR workshop, Modes of Documentary, happening here tomorrow, August 6th at 4pm and the Interactive Media & Video Installation workshops happening August 13th and 20th.

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Lisa Lipton Discusses Her Neighbourhood Spaces Residency Plans

Visual artist, musician and director, Lisa Lipton a.k.a. FRANKIE, kicks off the 2013-2014 artist-in-residence line up for Neighbourhood Spaces (NS), Windsor & Region’s Artist-in-Residence Program.

During her residency, Lisa will be developing a ‘Windsor-based Scene’ at Atkinson Skate Park for her docufictional film, BLAST BEATS. Each scene is being constructed as FRANKIE travels across North America, inspired by the people, places and situations she encounters. Community members often become participants, collaborating and influencing various ideas, musical and visual elements within the work.

Neighbourhood Spaces (NS) is an initiative of Arts Council Windsor & Region (ACWR), Broken City Lab (BCL) and The City of Windsor that will locate ten chosen Canadian artists in community sites throughout Windsor and Essex County in Ontario, for 4-6-week artist residences. Supported by the Ontario Trillium Foundation, this new program will allow artists to work in non-traditional spaces in non-traditional ways, by embedding artists in community sites to discover, explore and respond to the stories, triumphs and challenges of the community.

To learn more about the program, visit: http://www.acwr.net/ns

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Neighbourhood Spaces Artists-in-Residence Announced, Lisa Lipton Starts this Week!

Aaron McKenzie Fraser - photographer - http://www.amfraser.com
The 2013 – 2014 Neighbourhood Spaces (NS) artists-in-residence have been announced! Residencies kick-off this week with Lisa Lipton (Halifax, NS) at Atkinson and Forest Glade Skate Parks in Windsor, ON with her project: BLAST BEATS: Phase Three.
 
BLAST BEATS: Phase Three is an exploration in alternative methodologies for building a feature film on the road that spans the scope of Lisa’s experiences as a visual artist, musician and director. Each scene is being constructed in different locations across North America and explores the potential within transforming multi- media installations and performance into film sets and scenes. The narrative evolves with each place and space, and is informed its local community members and conversations with participating collaborators. Through mixing landscapes, people, artistic practices and genres of music, the project aims to unite a vast linage of creative energy in order to create a diverse story and feature film that transcends time and space. For her 6-week NS residency, Lisa will facilitate the making of a“Windsor-based SCENE” at the Skate Parks of Windsor to be included in the larger docufictional film.

Check out the full 2013 – 2014 NS artist line-up at www.acwr.net/ns

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Homework Residency: Day 1, Terms of Reference

Any report on Day 1 of our Homework Residency needs to begin with a huge welcome to all of our Artists-in-Residence. Get acquainted with everyone here!

As a preface, it’s important to note the difficulty in trying to document such an involved process with any meaningful artifacts and with such little time for reflection. Photos cannot do justice to the hours of exploratory conversations, tangents, and negotiations that took place. Nor can my attempts to record some of the overarching concerns that I picked up on appropriately document the frustrations, insights, and moments of meaningful critical engagement, do any part of the day justice.

But, to try to make this as useful as I can, there are large things that need to be framed — in particular, a way of approaching a residency that explicitly asked residents to be prepared to not tackle a pre-designed project, alongside a number of other artists. Throughout the day questions were raised around the possibilites and limits in collaboration within such a large group, the ways in which to facilitate collaboration over participation, and the terms of reference that we all bring, but need to forget about.

Today focused on tackling a set of possible directions and the ways in which 17 people might move there, together.

Continue reading “Homework Residency: Day 1, Terms of Reference”