Podcasts about open engagement

Welcome to another episode of Bad at Sports. In this episode, Jesse and Duncan sit down with Jen de los Reyes, an artist, organizer, and activist known for her transformative projects that bridge art and community engagement.   Jen de los Reyes is perhaps best known for her role in founding and organizing the groundbreaking Open Engagement conference, a platform that explores various facets of art and social practice. Through Open Engagement, Jen has created a space where artists, thinkers, and activists converge to discuss critical issues and forge connections that transcend traditional boundaries.   During our conversation, Jen de los Reyes shares insights into the origins of Open Engagement, its evolution over the years, and its impact on the contemporary art scene. We delve into the conference's role in fostering dialogue around social justice, environmental sustainability, and collective action within artistic practices.   In addition to her work with Open Engagement, we discuss: Garbage Hill Farm. This innovative urban farming initiative challenges conventional notions of sustainability and community building. The Garbage Hill Farm project transforms its urban landscapes and serves as a platform for education and empowerment within local communities.   All from inside of her exhibition “In Concert With” at Chicago's Co-Prosperity Sphere.   https://www.jendelosreyes.com/ https://www.instagram.com/garbagehillfarm/ https://openengagement.info/ https://www.disappearingbirds.org/  

Born and raised in Southern California, Noé developed his passion for art education working at the Skirball Cultural Center and Armory Center for the Arts in Los Angeles before getting a BA at UC Irvine. After, Noé completed an MFA in Public Practice at Otis College of Art and Design. Noé is also part of Michelada Think Tank, a collective of socially conscious artists, educators and activists working towards racial equity in the arts. More recently, Noé also joined Admin, a space for arts administrators to support one another, discuss pressing issues, and workshop new forms of cultural institutions. In addition to all this, Noé works as the School, Youth, and Family Programs Educator at the Brooklyn Museum. I first met Noé through my good friend, Carol Zou, a previous guest of the show. Carol and the rest of Michelada Think Tank were doing a project for Open Engagement in Pittsburgh and the whole collective stayed at my place. At the time, I was taking care of a bunny named LeBun James and coming home late to see LeBun jumping over and sitting on the sleeping Michelada crew is one of my fondest memories. Apparently, Noé remembered it as well. Throughout our conversation, we discuss finding community, diversity work at institutions, and people over objects. I hope you enjoy this. Links Mentioned:Noé Gaytán’s websiteAdminPrevious Episode with Carol ZouArmory Center for the ArtsSkirball Cultural CenterLACELorraine O'GradyChange the MuseumDaniel Joseph MartinezArt Museum Staff Demographic Survey 2018Adjoa Jones de AlmeidaKeonna HendrickCUE Art FoundationOpen EngagementFollow Seeing Color:Seeing Color WebsiteSubscribe on Apple PodcastsFacebookTwitterInstagram

Grayson Earle is a new media artist, activist, and educator based in Brooklyn, New York. He is the creator of Bail Bloc and a member of The Illuminator art collective. He graduated from the University of California at Irvine in 2009 with a BA in Film and Media Studies before relocating to New York where he received an MFA in Integrated Media Arts at Hunter College in 2013. Since then, Earle has worked as a professor at Hunter College, Oberlin College, and The New School. He has published and spoken about his work and related research including techno-Socialism, hacking as an art practice, and contemporary implications of the Russian avant-garde. Recent displays of his work include Centro de Cultura Digital (Mexico), Kate Vass Galerie (Switzerland), and the Brooklyn Museum (USA). He has presented his work and research at The Whitney Museum of Art, MoMA PS1, Radical Networks, the Magnum Foundation, and Open Engagement.

On this episode of our Indoor Recess series we check back into a boozie 2017 with an interview we recorded the end of our first all day takeover at WLPN as part of Open Engagement in Chicago with long time friend of the show, Allison Agsten. It was a moment where anything seemed possible and we were excited by the road ahead. Many things (like the pandemic) have changed for us, for Allison, for Chicago and LA since then but in the context of this interview the most notable change is the closure of Allison’s project, the Main Museum. Which closed its doors in 2018 but the thing that drew us back to this moment was, everyone on mic was inspired and excited. Not everything had gone right and mistakes had been made all through the day but we were trying and we could all see new possibilities in a shared future. Stay safe friends, we will get somewhere better together. https://news.artnet.com/market/what-happened-at-the-main-1564471 http://openengagement.info/chicago-2017/ http://lumpenradio.com/ http://www.blackartmatters.net/  

Practical advice for PR practitioners about incorporating SEO in their earned media programs. The Open Government Partnership and the Grand Committee converged on Ottawa to discuss open engagement, privacy, responsibility. Mark Zuckerberg took a pass.

In this long awaited episode from Open Engagement 2016, we are mesmerized by Aaron Gach of the Center for Tactical Magic. Aaron illuminates us on power and the adoption of magical techniques by the NSA. Has NSA influence somehow made this episode post two years late? We can’t say.  The Center for Tactical Magic engages in extensive research, development, and deployment of the pragmatic system known as Tactical Magic. A fusion force summoned from the ways of the artist, the magician, the ninja, and the private investigator, Tactical Magic is an amalgam of disparate arts invoked for the purpose of actively addressing Power on individual, communal, and transnational fronts. Center for Tactical Magic

In this throwback episode to Open Engagement 2016, Dana and Patricia take a walk with Cary Lin and Sarah Hotchkiss project Stairwells. Part curatorial platform, part experimental art practice, Stairwell’s facilitates interactive experiences to challenge familiar understandings of place and create new opportunities to engage with the everyday. An ever-evolving project, Stairwell’s fosters temporary communities of curious and engaged individuals, providing opportunities for connections and changes in perspective. http://stairwells.org/

Art and Change. Fast and Slow. We check in with three bright lights of the Minneapolis/St Paul arts community and try to get to the bottom of #soilpractice #socialpractice How do we make and sustain engagement?  Recorded as part of the B@S radio take over at Lumpen Radio WLPN Chicago for Justice and Open Engagement 2018 Colleen Sheehy is Executive Director of Public Art Saint Paul, an organization that places artists in leading roles to shape urban spaces, improve city systems, and deepen civic engagement.  http://publicartstpaul.org/ Valentine Cadieux is Director of the Environmental Studies Program and the Sustainability Program at Hamline University in St. Paul. https://www.hamline.edu/faculty-staff/valentine-cadieux/ Shanai Matteson is an artist and activist who leads collaborative public art and design projects through Works Progress Studio. She is cofounder of Water Bar & Public Studio. https://www.shanai.art/ http://www.worksprogress.org/  

PJ Gubatina Policarpio gets real with me on the nitty gritty of what it takes financially and emotionally to pursue a career in museums if you come from a low-income background. He discusses why building community is integral to his work, how diversifying his skill set was a financial strategy, and why he considers himself primarily a museum educator. Plus he shares his ideas on how we can mentor another generation of brown and black museum workers.  Share your own stories using the hashtag #costofmakingit.  PJ Gubatina Policarpio is an educator, curator, programmer, writer, and community organizer. His multidisciplinary practice utilizes research, collaboration, programming, pedagogy and public engagement as both art and tool. PJ creates intersections for meaningful connections between communities and art, especially addressing a diverse, multilingual, and multicultural audience. He brings dynamic and wide-ranging experience in museum education, youth development, and arts administration, previously working at The Museum of Modern Art, Queens Museum, and Brooklyn Museum. He has presented in conferences including NYCMER, AAM, NAEA, CCA and Open Engagement and is part of Museum as Site for Social Action (MASS Action). Born in the Philippines, PJ is currently the Youth Programs Manager at the Contemporary Jewish Museum in San Francisco.  Select Publications: Introduction to Filipino-American Writers. Mabuhay Magazine, June Issue. 2018 Culture Lab Manifesto Playbook. Published by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center. 2018 Textiles of the Philippines: A Resource Coloring Book. 2016 Engaging Multilingual Students: An Educator's Guide. artmuseumteaching.com. 2015

This week features a soil + social practice mega-interview conducted live at Open Engagement 2018. The conversation includes  Francesca Fiore and Hillary Wagner explaining what their collaborative effort SOIL SERIES is, and how the project fits into the context of its rural Appalachian setting. Margaretha Haughwout discusses her project for the conference (Trees of Tomorrow) as well as her work with Guerrilla Grafters. And Sarah Nelson Wright describes the various iterations of the group effort Chance Ecologies. The imaginative and practical potential of soil + social practice connects all these practices and provides the framework for the dialogue.    http://www.treesoftomorrow.life/ http://www.guerrillagrafters.org/ http://chancecologies.org/ https://soilseriesbethel.com/

This week in the studio, Gwendolyn Zabicki swept in to reflect on her love of painting, as Dana and Ryan get a glimpse into her sparkling studio practice. Gwendolyn decries the onerousness of curating, sharing her prolific pursuits of wrangling some big group painting exhibitions. Dana hints at a deep dish about the upcoming Open Engagement close to the chest and Ryan keeps his definition of brachylogy brief.   http://gwendolynzabicki.com/

This week We head back to Open Engagement and we talk to Donna Neuwirth and Su Legatt about "the Worm Farm Institute," Creative Placemaking, The practice of art in rural and urban environments, empathy, and community.  https://www.sulegatt.com/ https://wormfarminstitute.org/about-the-wormfarm/about/

How should we teach art after Social Practice and the Post-Studio? Michelle Illuminato (Portland State,) Brett Hunter (Alfred,) and Carol Padberg (Hartford) help us work through the problem. Recorded at Open Engagement 2017  

Lisa Lee! Chicago social justice visionary, former Director of Jane Addam's Hull-House and current Director of the University of Illinois Chicago's School of Art and Art History! Hell yes. Recorded at the Oakland Museum at Open Engagement 2016. Here is the UIC bio... Lisa Yun Lee is the Director of the School of Art & Art History, a visiting curator at the Jane Addams Hull-House Museum, and a member of the Art History, Museum and Exhibition Studies, and Gender and Women's Studies faculty at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Lisa is also the co-founder of The Public Square at the Illinois Humanities Council, an organization dedicated to creating spaces for dialogue and dissent and for reinvigorating civil society. She has published a book on Frankfurt School philosopher Theodor Adorno titled, Dialectics of the Body: Corporeality in the Philosophy of Theodor Adorno (Routledge, 2004), and researches and writes about museums and diversity, cultural and environmental sustainability, and spaces for fostering radically democratic practices. Lisa received her BA in Religion from Bryn Mawr College, and a PhD in German Studies from Duke University. She is the Co-Chair of the Executive Committee of the Institute for Research on Race and Public Policy at UIC, and she serves on the national boards of the American Alliance of Museums, Imagining America: Artists & Scholars in Public Life, the Ms. Magazine Adviory Board, and the boards of Rebuild Foundation, the National Public Housing Museum, Young Chicago Authors, 3Arts, and the International Contemporary Ensemble.

This week begins with Bad at Sports jumping back in to Open Engagement and the realm of socially engaged art!   MARK TRIBE   Hell yes. The Mark Tribe checks in about Rizome.org, the Port Huron Project, New Nature, and his Move to SVA!   This week we are also sponsored by SAIC’s MFA in Printmedia! http://www.saic.edu/academics/departments/print/ Apply now.  

  This week we chase down the beauty of drawing, the perils of the 501c3, the question of economy and the base matter of humor, all with the brilliant Edgar Arceneaux. Duncan Mackenzie is joined Amanda Browder, Amy Mooney, and Abigail Satinsky live from inside a tent at Open Engagement 2014. Why did it take so long to post? Because it did.

This week: Open Engagement 2014 Amanda, Duncan, and Abby talk to Ben Davis.  

This week: Duncan, Richard, and Jason Dunda talk to a cast of thousands led by Jen Delos Reyes! Jen Delos Reyes is an artist originally from Winnipeg, MB, Canada. Her research interests include the history of socially engaged art, group work, band dynamics, folk music, and artists’ social roles. She has exhibited works across North America and Europe, and has contributed writing to various catalogues and institutional publications. She has received numerous grants and awards including a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada Grant. Jen is the founder and director of Open Engagement, a conference on socially engaged art practice and herself speaks widely on Art and Social Practice at conferences and institutions around the world. She is currently an Assistant Professor at Portland State University where she teaches in the Art and Social Practice MFA program. photo credit: Motoya Nakamura

This week: The second installment in our Open Engagement 2013 series! Caroline Picard talks to Amy Spiers. Amy Spiers is a Melbourne-based artist and writer interested in socially engaged and participatory art. She employs a cross-disciplinary approach that includes photography, video, installation, text and performance for both site-specific and gallery contexts. Amy completed a Master of Fine Art at the Victorian College of Art in 2011. During her studies she explored strategies for inviting viewer participation in her art. Amy has presented numerous art projects in festivals and galleries across Australia, including Melbourne Fringe, Next Wave, Tiny Stadiums, This Is Not Art, Performance Space, Platform, Inflight ARI and SASA Gallery. For more information about Amy’s work go to: amyspiers.tumblr.com

This week: Part one of the Open Engagement conference 2013 series. Caroline Picard talks to Caire Doherty! Claire Doherty is Director of Situations. Claire initiated Situations in 2003 following a ten-year period investigating new curatorial models beyond conventional exhibition-making at a range of art institutions including Ikon Gallery, Birmingham, Spike Island, Bristol and FACT (Foundation of Art and Creative Technology), Liverpool. Claire has worked with a diversity of artists including Lara Almarcegui, Uta Barth, Brian Catling, Phil Collins, Nathan Coley, Lara Favaretto, Ellen Gallagher, Joseph Grigely, Jeppe Hein, Susan Hiller, Mariele Neudecker, Cornelia Parker, Roman Ondak, Joao Penalva and Ivan and Heather Morison. She has advised a range of organisations as curatorial consultant including Tate, Site Gallery Sheffield and is author of the public art strategies for the University of Bristol and Bjorvika, Oslo Harbour. In 2009, Claire was awarded a prestigious Paul Hamlyn Breakthrough Award as an outstanding cultural entrepreneur. Claire directed One Day Sculpture in 2008-9 with David Cross, a year-long collaborative series of 20 commissioned, 24-hour public artworks across New Zealand. In 2010, she was Co-Curatorial Director of Wonders of Weston for Weston-super-Mare. Doherty lectures and publishes internationally. She is editor of Contemporary Art: From Studio to Situation (Black Dog Publishing, 2004); Documents of Contemporary Art: Situation (Whitechapel/MIT Press, 2009) and co-editor with David Cross of One Day Sculpture (Kerber, 2009), with Paul O’Neill, Locating the Producers: Durational Approaches to Public Art (Valiz, 2011) and with Gerrie van Noord, Heather and Ivan Morison: Falling into Place (Book Works, 2009). She was also an external advisory member of the Olympic Park Public Realm Advisory Committee and a Fellow of the RSA.

This week: More SoPra! From the Open Engagement 2012 Duncan, Abby Satin Sky, Randall, Jesse, and Brian team up against Sal Randolph! Sal Randolph lives in New York and makes art involving gift economies, social interactions, public spaces, texts, and instructions, including Opsound, (a site for the exchange of copyleft music) the Free Biennial and Free Manifesta (a pair of open guerrilla 'biennials'), Free Words (a book infiltrated into bookstores and libraries), and Money Actions (an ongoing series of interventions in which she gives away money to strangers. Her Money Actions have been part of the 2011 Ljubljana Biennial, the Live Biennale in Vancouver, Art in Odd Places, and textual version have been exhibited at Christina Ray Gallery. Other projects have taken place at Manifesta 4, Roda Sten, the Palais de Tokyo, Burofriedrich, Art Interactive and Pace Digital Gallery. In early 2012 she was an artist in residence at Proteus Gowanus in Brooklyn where she offered members of the public free tickets to unknown destinations. Recently she has also performed live with her manual typewriter as part of 'And the Winner is Nick Kahn' at the Cantor Fitzgerald Gallery at Haverford. Her work has been commented on in Olav Velthius' Imaginary Economics; Contemporary Artists and the World of Big Money, Eileen Myles' The Importance of Being Iceland, as well as on National Public Radio and in The Art Newspaper, Tema Celeste and the Village Voice. She is currently investigating games, recipes, algorithms, codes, and texts, playing video games, and writing about about experience, participation, and value in art.

This week: We kick off with the most depressing intro ever (yet still hilarious) and then get to the good stuff. We talk to Shannon Jackson at the Open Engagement conference, preceded by a (unfortunately) truncated conversation with Jen Delos Reyes. Shannon Jackson is Professor of Rhetoric and of Theater, Dance and Performance Studies. She is also currently the Director of the Arts Research Center. Her most recent book is Social Works: Performing Art, Supporting Publics, and she is also working on a book about The Builders Association. Other awards and grants include: Lilla Heston Award for Outstanding Scholarship in Performance Studies (NCA); Junior Faculty Fellowship, Radcliffe College; the Kahan Scholar’s Prize in Theatre History (ASTR); the Spencer Foundation Dissertation fellowship; the Black Theater Network; the National Endowment for the Humanities, and several project grants from the Walter and Elise Haas Fund, UCIRA, the San Francisco Foundation, and the LEF Foundation. Selected adaptation, performance, and directing credits: White Noises, The Smell of Death and Flowers, Hull-House Women, Catastrophe, The Successful Life of 3. Jackson serves on the boards of Cal Performances, the Berkeley Art Museum, and the Berkeley Center for New Media.  She serves on the editorial boards of several journals, has been a keynote speaker at a variety of international symposia, and has co-organized conferences and residencies with the Arts Research Center, The Builders Association, Touchable Stories, American Society of Theatre Research, the American Studies Association, the Women and Theatre Project, Berkeley Repertory Theatre, the Multi-campus Research Group on International Performance, and UCB’s Center for Community Innovation.  Jackson was an Erasmus Mundus visiting professor in Paris at the Maison des Sciences de l’Homme Nord and at the Université Libre de Bruxelles for the 2008-09 academic year. Before moving to Berkeley, Jackson was an assistant professor of English and Literature at Harvard University from 1995 to 1998. Jen Delos Reyes is an artist originally from Winnipeg, MB, Canada. Her research interests include the history of socially engaged art, group work, and artists' social roles. She has exhibited works across North America and Europe, and has contributed writing to various catalogues and institutional publications. In 2008 she contributed writing to Decentre: Concerning Artist-Run Culture published by YYZBOOKS. In 2006 she completed an intensive workshop, Come Together: Art and Social Engagement, at The Kitchen in New York. She has received numerous grants and awards including a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada Grant. She is the founder and organizer of Open Engagement, a conference on socially engaged art practices. She is currently an Assistant Professor and teaches in the Art and Social Practice MFA concentration at Portland State University.

This week: Our final installment in the Open Engagement series. This week we talk to Jule Ault! Julie Ault Julie Ault is a New York based artist and writer who independently and collaboratively organizes exhibitions, publications, and multiform projects. She often assumes curatorial and editorial roles as forms of artistic practice. Her work emphasizes interrelationships between cultural production and politics and frequently engages historical inquiry. Upcoming projects include “No-Stop City High-Rise: A Conceptual Equation,” in collaboration with Martin Beck for the 29th Bienal de São Paulo, and recent work includes collaborating with Danh Vo on the publication Where the Lions Are, (Basel Kunsthalle, 2009). Ault is the editor of Show and Tell: A Chronicle of Group Material (Four Corners Books, 2010), Alternative Art New York, 1965-1985 (University of Minnesota Press, 2002), Felix Gonzalez-Torres (steidl/dangin, 2006), and is the author of Come Alive! The Spirited Art of Sister Corita (Four Corners Books, 2006).

This week: Duncan, Brian, and Abigail Satinsky in conversation with Christine Hill at the Open Engagement conference, which took place from May 13 to 15, 2011 at Portland State University. Open Engagement is an initiative of PSU’s Art and Social Practice MFA program that encourages discussion on various perspectives in social practice. Christine Hill is an artist, musician, hobby librarian and the proprietor of Volksboutique, a former second-hand shop turned production facility operating out of Brooklyn, New York and Berlin, Germany. Hill's work proposes new investigations into mixed-media installation and performance. Examining contemporary forms of popular entertainment (for example, producing a television talk show in a New York gallery, in Pilot, 2000), imitating paradigms of elite advertising, and deploying businesses as art projects (a second-hand clothing store in Berlin, Volksboutique in 1996-97, a fully operable tour guide agency in New York in 1999) Hill investigates the proximity of contemporary art to mass entertainment, consumerism, and popular culture. In the process, she proposes new roles for viewers (as consumers, tourists, members of a TV audience), redefines artistic spaces of exhibition (as stores, studios, catwalks), and reinvents a mobile artistic identity (whether as talk show host, store owner, or tour guide). She defines these interventions as 'Organizational Ventures.' Hill has exhibited and lectured widely internationally. She has been the subject of numerous publications and she shows regularly. Recent solo exhibitions include Ronald Feldman Fine Arts, New York; Galerie EIGEN+ART, Berlin; the Museum of Contemporary Art Leipzig; the MigrosMuseum in Zurich and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Cleveland. Forthcoming projects include collaboration with the curator Mary Jane Jacob for Chicago's Sullivan Galleries and a solo presentation at the Martin Gropius Bau in Berlin, both in 2009. She was included in documenta X in 1997, and has participated in numerous international group exhibitions. Her work has been reviewed extensively, including in Artforum, The New York Times, The Village Voice, Art in America and in considerable international publications. The "Volksboutique Style Manual" is in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art, New York. The Volksboutique project "Minutes" was included in the 2007 Venice Biennale under the curation of Robert Storr. Christine Hill is Professor and Chair of Media, Trend and Public Appearance at the Bauhaus University in Weimar, Germany. www.volksboutique.org

This week: Duncan, Brian, and Abigail Satinsky in conversation with James Voorhies at the Open Engagement conference, which took place from May 13 to 15, 2011 at Portland State University. Open Engagement is an initiative of PSU’s Art and Social Practice MFA program that encourages discussion on various perspectives in social practice. In this conversation, Voorhies, who was a featured presenter at this year’s conference, talks about the origin, evolution, and activities of the Bureau for Open Culture, which he founded.   The Bureau for Open Culture is a curatorial and pedagogic institution for the contemporary arts. It works intentionally to re-imagine the art exhibition as a discursive form of education that creates a kind of new public sphere or new institution. Exhibitions take shape as installations, screenings, informal talks, and performances; they occur in parking lots, storefronts, libraries, industrial sites, country roads, gardens, and galleries. In doing so, the Bureau generates platforms for learning and knowledge production that make ideas accessible, relevant, and inviting for diverse audiences. This model encourages overlaps of art, science, ecology, the built environment, philosophy, and design. Form, content and site are underlining points of critical inquiry for Bureau for Open Culture.   This  interview is part of the ongoing collaboration between Bad at Sports and Art Practical. You can read an abridged transcript of the conversation here: http://www.artpractical.com/feature/interview_with_james_voorhies/  

This week: Duncan MacKenzie, Brian Andrews Abigail Satinsky and Bryce Dwyer begin an adventure in caring and sharing called "Open Engagement." These four adventures of love check in with all the haps in Portland over the next 6 episodes.  This week they kick it live with Jen Delos Reyes and FRITZ HAEG! Take that internet. Jen Delos Reyes Jen Delos Reyes is an artist originally from Winnipeg, MB, Canada. Her research interests include the history of socially engaged art, group work, and artists' social roles. She has exhibited works across North America and Europe, and has contributed writing to various catalogues and institutional publications. She contributed writing to Decentre: Concerning Artist-Run Culture published by YYZBOOKS in 2008. In 2006 she completed an intensive workshop, Come Together: Art and Social Engagement, at The Kitchen in New York. She has received numerous grants and awards including a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada Grant. Jen is the founder and director of Open Engagement, a conference on socially engaged art practice. She is currently an Assistant Professor in the Art and Social Practice MFA concentration.   http://jendelosreyes.com http://openengagement.info   From Wikipedia... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fritz_Haeg   Fritz Haeg (born 1969) was trained as an architect, but his current work spans a range of disciplines and media including gardens, dance, performance, design, installation, ecology and architecture, most of which is commissioned and presented by art museums and institutions. His work often involves collaboration with other individuals and site specific projects that respond to particular places.   Haeg's recent architecture projects have included the design for various residential and art projects including the contemporary art gallery peres projects and the Bernardi residence, both in Los Angeles, CA. He studied architecture in Italy at the Istituto Universitario di Architettura di Venezia and Carnegie Mellon University, where he received his B. Arch. He has variously taught in architecture, design, and fine art programs at California Institute of the Arts (CalArts), Art Center College of Design, Parsons School of Design, and the University of Southern California. http://badatsports.com/

This week: Holy bicenquinquagenary Batman! Brian and Duncan (and guest stars including but not limited to Randall Szott) talk to Creative Time chief curator, author, and all around interesting guest Nato Thompson. This show is the second in the series of interviews recorded at the Open Engagement conference at which Mr. Thompson was a guest. This series already charts among some of my favorites in the history of the show. Enjoy!Since January 2007, Nato has organized major projects for Creative Time such as Democracy in America: The National Campaign (2008), Paul ChanÂ’s acclaimed Waiting for Godot in New Orleans (2007) and Mike Nelson’s A Psychic Vacuum. Previous to Creative Time, he worked as Curator at MASS MoCA where he completed numerous large-scale exhibitions such as The Interventionists: Art in the Social Sphere (2004), a survey of political art of the 1990s with a catalogue distributed by MIT Press. His writings have appeared in numerous publications including BookForum, Art Journal, tema celeste, Parkett, Cabinet and The Journal of Aesthetics and Protest. The College Art Association awarded him for distinguished writing in Art Journal in 2004. He recently curated an exhibition for Independent Curators International titled Experimental Geography with a book available by Melville House Publishing. His book on art and activism is due out by Autonomedia in October 2009.

This week: The first in our series of interviews from the Open Engagement conference that took place in Portland this past May. We start off with an excellent discussion that Randall Szott, Duncan, Brian and the occasional Incubate person had with artist, writer, lemon tormentor Ted Purves. Topics include; Ted's work, the past present and future of Social Practice and what it means to be an artist today.This series of interviews (thusfar, I've only gone through the first two) are some of my favorite discussions that (the royal) we have had in the 5 years of the show. Great stuff!Ted Purves is a writer and artist based in Oakland. His public projects and curatorial works are centered on investigating the practice of art in the world, particularly as it addresses issues of localism, democratic participation, and innovative shifts in the position of the audience. His two-year project, Temescal Amity Works, created in collaboration with Susanne Cockrell and based in the Temescal neighborhood of Oakland, facilitated and documented the exchange of backyard produce and finished its public phase in winter 2007. His collaborative project Momentary Academy, a free school taught by artists over a period of 10 weeks, was featured in Bay Area Now 4 in 2005 at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco. Ted recently received a visual arts grant from the Creative Capital Foundation and a Creative Work Fund grant from the Elise and Walter Haas Foundation. His book, What We Want Is Free: Generosity and Exchange in Recent Art, was published by State University of New York Press in 2005.The Open Engagement conference is an initiative of Portland State University’s Art and Social Practice MFA concentration and co-sponsored by Portland Community College and the MFA in Visual Studies program at Pacific Northwest College of Art and supported by the Cyan PDX Cultural Residency Program. Directed by Jen Delos Reyes and planned in conjunction with Harrell Fletcher and the Portland State University MFA Monday Night Lecture Series, this conference features three nationally and internationally renowned artists: Mark Dion, Amy Franceschini, and Nils Norman. The conference will showcase work by Temporary Services, InCUBATE, and a new project by Mark Dion created in collaboration with students from the PSU Art and Social Practice concentration. The artists involved in Open Engagement: Making Things, Making Things Better, Making Things Worse, challenge our traditional ideas of what art is and does. These artist’s projects mediate the contemporary frameworks of art as service, as social space, as activism, as interactions, and as relationships, and tackle subject matter ranging from urban planning, alternative pedagogy, play, fiction, sustainability, political conflict and the social role of the artist. Can socially engaged art do more harm than good? Are there ethical responsibilities for social art? Does socially engaged art have a responsibility to create public good? Can there be transdisciplinary approaches to contemporary art making that would contribute to issues such as urban planning and sustainability? Open Engagement is a free conference May 14-17, 2010, in Portland, Oregon. This annual conference will be a focal point of a new low residency Art and Social Practice MFA that PSU hopes to launch in Fall of 2010. This years conference will host over 100 artists, activists, curators, scholars, writers, farmers, community organizers, film makers and collectives including: Nato Thompson, The Watts House Project, Linda Weintraub, Ted Purves, Henry Jenkins, Wealth Underground Farms, Brian Collier, Anne E. Moore, David Horvitz, Chen Tamir, and Parfyme.