Now and There is pleased to announce our first panel discussion, Where's the Art? during ArtWeek Boston with co-sponsors NEFA's Fund for the Arts and the Boston Center for the Arts along with other organizations who nurture artists and the artistic practice in Boston.
Where's the Art? brings together artists, architects and placemakers who'll give examples of their work and discuss the spectrum of practices in public art...and the gaps in between.
In the discussion of place-making and art-in-the-public-realm it often seems like the philosophies and interests of artists are left in the shadows. This panel will bring together artists – from social practice artists who often don’t have a tangible product, to traditional sculptors – with designers for a healthy discussion about the many definitions of public art and what we can do to support more public art in our communities.
This event is co-sponsored by NEFA's Fund For the Arts and the Boston Center for the Arts.
Top: Megan and Murray McMillan. Bottom left to right: Cedric Douglas, Liz Nofziger, Artforming.
Panelists:
Cedric Douglas is an artist and designer, who combines the use of idea, graffiti ideology and raw creativity to connect, inspire, and interact with the community. Douglas is inspired by public art because of its accessibility. His latest project, The UpTruck (funded by The Boston Foundation) is a mobile arts lab that was created to engage residents in a co-visioned, co-created process leading to a final design and implementation of a permanent art structure for the Uphams Corner Community. Through this unconventional art and the design process the UP Truck has inspired spontaneous discovery, creativity, and fun.
Megan McMillan, artist, writer and SMFA faculty member together with her partner Murray McMillan create a blend of installation, video, performance and photography. While the end result of the work is often video installation, they see the entire process -- from animated digital modes and concept drawings to their specific engagement with the people who participate to construction to filming to final installation -- as equally essential to their practice. The McMillans recently created “The Shifting Space Around Us” for Toronto’s Nuit Blanche and “What We Loved and Forgot: Installation” for Boston's Lawn on D inaugural season.
Liz Nofziger brought “Bounce”, a colorful, interactive outdoor installation to the BCA plaza last summer as part of the BCA's Temporary Public Art Residency program. Made up of three conjoined, regulation-sized ping pong tables, custom-engineered to form an oversized Community Ping Pong Court the project added a sculpture presence to the plaza as well as sheer delight to all who played on it.
Rob Trumbour, AIA is Associate Professor of Architecture at Wentworth Institute of Technology (Boston, MA), a founding partner in the design/research practice Khôra, and the founding director of the Boston-based design collaborative Artforming. Educated in the fields of the fine arts and architecture, Rob’s current work engages in art, architecture and landscape through the medium of installation art and emerging technologies.
Moderator: Kate Gilbert, Now and There Director
RSVP: This event is free and open to the public however reservations are necessary. Visit Eventbrite by May 1 to save your seat!
Venue: BCA Plaza Theater at 539 Tremont Tremont St., Boston MA 02116. The theater is handicapped accessible.
Questions? Contact info@nowandthere.org or call 617-800-0354 with questions.
With partner BostonAPP/LAB.