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Join us for an unforgettable journey with Jeffrey Gibson, a groundbreaking multidisciplinary artist of Choctaw and Cherokee descent, as he shares his artistic voyage shaped by a nomadic childhood across continents. Jeffrey's narrative is woven with rich threads of Native American history and his unique personal experiences, which have culminated in a dynamic collage of materials, sounds, and ideas in his art. He brings to light the emotional weight and significance of reconnecting with his roots at the Choctaw Reservation, offering listeners a heartfelt glimpse into cultural reconciliation and the continuity of Indigenous traditions.In this episode, we explore the resilience and survival of Indigenous communities, particularly through their vibrant traditions of dance, prayer, language, and artistry, despite the historical and ongoing adversities they face. Jeffrey and our hosts shine a spotlight on the individual creativity and aesthetic choices of Native artists, both past and present, and the powerful role of artistic expression in sustaining cultural identity and hope. Additionally, the episode delves into the intertwined histories of Native and African-American communities, touching on shared struggles and the enduring spirit of empowerment within their art and cultures.Jeffrey also opens up about the transformative impact of his international art education, including pivotal moments at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and the Royal College of Art in London. From the excitement and validation of being recognized at the Venice Biennale to the profound experience of being the first Indigenous artist to have a solo show at the US Pavilion, Jeffrey's story is one of navigating representation, recognition, and the global stage. We wrap up with an insightful discussion on the importance of community, collaboration, and the thriving moment of Indigenous art, underscored by the landmark volume "An Indigenous Present" and its forthcoming exhibition. Don't miss this enriching conversation celebrating the flourishing visibility and appreciation of Indigenous artistry.
The sports world may be on the edge of their seats as we draw close to the 2024 Olympics in Paris. But the “Olympics of the art world” is already well underway in Italy: Hundreds of thousands of art lovers are flocking to the Venice Biennale, which runs through November 24. This massive exhibition has been held every two years with very few exceptions since 1895, when it was inaugurated as the world's first art biennial. Visitors who devote a whole week of their time will still only be able to take in a sliver of the art on display, whether it's at the central exhibition, the collateral events, or the dozens of storied national pavilions in the Giardini and around the city. But that's not all the exhibition has in store. The politics of the art world are also on full display, whether in the form of protests or the curators' decisions about how their countries — with all their past and present controversies — will be represented. This year's included Russia offering its pavilion up to Indigenous artists from Bolivia, Brazil renaming its pavilion “Hãhãwpuá” after the Indigenous Patxohã term for the land, Poland welcoming an art collective from Ukraine, the United States featuring Jeffrey Gibson as the first Native American artist to have a solo exhibition at the pavilion, and Israel canceling its exhibition … which perhaps wasn't really canceled after all. Hyperallergic Editor-in-Chief Hrag Vartanian and longtime contributor AX Mina sat down to reflect on the aesthetic successes, political failures, and long-awaited representation they saw displayed at the world's biggest contemporary art show. Subscribe to Hyperallergic on Apple Podcasts, and anywhere else you listen to podcasts.(00:00) - Intro (04:24) - First Impressions of the Biennale and the Main Exhibition (06:33) - India: Aravani Art Project (07:48) - Singapore: Charmaine Poh (08:58) - Lebanon: Omar Mismar (09:42) - “Italians Everywhere” (11:06) - Morocco: Bouchra Khalili (13:16) - The National Pavilions (14:21) - Benin Pavilion (16:12) - Lebanon Pavilion (18:19) - Italy Pavilion (20:14) - UK Pavilion (22:44) - US Pavilion (25:29) - Israel Pavilion (28:51) - Saudi Arabia Pavilion (30:07) - Nigeria Pavilion (32:11) - Egypt Pavilion (34:07) - Taiwan Pavilion (35:57) - Australia Pavilion (38:16) - Mongolia Pavilion (40:06) - “South West Bank,” collateral event (42:23) - Outro —Subscribe to Hyperallergic NewslettersBecome a member
Jingle Dance Program featuring dancers and singers from the Oklahoma Fancy Dancers and Colorado Inter-Tribal Dancers. Jeffrey Gibson: the space ...
For the 27th episode of "Reading the Art World," host Megan Fox Kelly speaks with Eva Respini, author of “Simone Leigh,” published by DelMonico Books in association with the Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston. Eva Respini's book offers a deep dive into the groundbreaking work of contemporary artist Simone Leigh, whose multidimensional artistry challenges conventions, and sparks meaningful conversations about race, gender, and identity. Through Eva's expertise, we'll uncover the complexities of Leigh's art, and gain a deeper understanding of its cultural significance. Eva served as the Curator and Co-Commissioner for the 2022 US Pavilion's presentation of Simone Leigh at the 59th International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia. It marked the first time a Black woman represented the United States at the Biennale, and Leigh won the 2022 Golden Lion for her groundbreaking work. Eva organized the highly successful mid-career survey of Simone Leigh's works, which opened at the ICA/Boston in April 2023 and will tour across the United States through 2025. In addition to the insightful writing from multiple perspectives of 22 contributing scholars and collaborators of Leigh's, the book is beautifully illustrated with plates that feature Leigh's critically acclaimed work for the Biennale and works made throughout her career. See an album of Simone Leigh's Biennale exhibition. Eva Respini is Deputy Director and Director of Curatorial Programs at the Vancouver Art Gallery. Between 2015-2023, Respini was Deputy Director and Barbara Lee Chief Curator at the Institute of Contemporary Art Boston (ICA/Boston). Prior to her tenure at the ICA/Boston, she served as Curator at the Museum of Modern Art for more than a decade in the department of photography. She currently teaches a seminar on curatorial practice at Harvard University's Graduate School of Design. Other universities where she has taught and lectured include School of Visual Arts, Columbia University; Yale University's School of Art; and the School of Visual Arts, New York. Eva has published numerous books and catalogues and her writing appears in museum publications and periodicals. She received a BA and MA in art history from Columbia University and was a 2014 fellow at the Center for Curatorial Leadership. "Reading the Art World" is a live interview and podcast series with leading art world authors hosted by art advisor Megan Fox Kelly. The conversations explore timely subjects in the world of art, design, architecture, artists and the art market, and are an opportunity to engage further with the minds behind these insightful new publications. Megan Fox Kelly is an art advisor and past President of the Association of Professional Art Advisors who works with collectors, estates and foundations.For more information, visit meganfoxkelly.com, hear our past interviews, and subscribe at the bottom of our Of Interest page for new posts.Follow us on Instagram: @meganfoxkellyPurchase “Simone Leigh” at Delmonico Books.Music composed by Bob Golden
#business #technology #change #toctw #podcast #technology Jonathan Brill writes, speaks and advises on how to create, manage and turn radical change to your advantage. Brill is an expert on strategic foresight and technology innovation. Harvard Business Review recently called Brill, “The world's leading transformation architect.” His visionary, yet pragmatic approach to the future is based on years as the Global Futurist at #hp where he directed long-term strategy and planning. He is the Senior Fellow at HBR's China New Growth Institute and Board Advisor at Frost & Sullivan, one of the world's largest market intelligence firms, with offices in 46 countries. He is the author of Rogue Waves, Future-Proof Your Business to Survive and Profit from Radical Change (McGraw-Hill), the #2 selling economics book in China. The Economist called it, “A very important book for managers.” and Adam Grant called it, “An actionable framework for driving change instead of being blindsided by it.” Inc. magazine called Brill “A Silicon Valley legend.” because his innovation consultancies developed over 350 products and generated over $27B USD for clients like Samsung, Microsoft, Verizon, PepsiCo and the US government. These projects have ranged from AI, search engines, and metaverse technologies to theme park rides and design of the US Pavilion at the 2015 World's Fair (Expo Milano) to Taco Bell's Gordita. He is a frequent thought leader, speaker and contributor to HBR, TED, Global Peter Drucker Forum, SCMP, SXSW, J.P. Morgan, Singularity, Forbes, Korn Ferry, The Economist Global Business Report, Bloomberg, Sirius XM, Fast Company, The Project Management Institute, Brightline and Thinkers50. He has educated corporate leaders at Harvard and Stanford Universities. He holds a degree in industrial design from Pratt Institute, spent years as a research consultant to the MIT Media Lab and in management training at the Stanford University Graduate School of Business. https://www.jonathanbrill.comhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/jonathanbrill1https://twitter.com/jonathanbrill Connect & Follow us at: https://in.linkedin.com/in/eddieavil https://in.linkedin.com/company/change-transform-india https://www.facebook.com/changetransformindia/ https://twitter.com/intothechange https://www.instagram.com/changetransformindia/ Dont Forget to Subscribe www.youtube.com/ctipodcast
Iker Gil is an architect and director of MAS Studio, the editor-in-chief of MAS Context, and the Executive Director of the SOM Foundation. He was the co-curator of Exhibit Columbus 2020-2021 and associate curator of the US Pavilion at the 16th Venice Architecture Biennale in 2016. In this conversation, Jarrett and Iker talk about the relationship between architecture and editing, sustaining a publication, and the value of organizing and administration in creative work. Links from this episode can be found at scratchingthesurface.fm/222-iker-gil. — If you enjoy the show, please consider supporting us on Patreon and get bonus content, transcripts, and our monthly newsletter! www.patreon.com/surfacepodcast
A short interview with Charlie Moores talking with campaigner and award-winning author Linda Newbery, whose book “This Book is Cruelty-Free – Animals and Us” which looks at the way our daily choices affect the lives of animals was published in July last year (and Off the Leash has an exciting announcement around that later in this interview). First though, at the end of January this year we posted a shortcast by Summer, from the campaign group Feed our Future, which aims to address climate emergency and animal exploitation issues starting with the food on our school plates. Feed our Future is working with councils to encourage the switch from emission heavy foods to plant-based ones. Linda heard that shortcast and mentioned to Charlie that she had been involved in a Feed our Future campaign in Oxfordshire, where she lives, and that Oxfordshire County Council had passed a motion in December that would see vegan-only food being served at council events, and school's being encouraged to serve a vegan menu 'at least twice a week'. The motion had been tabled by Green Party Councillor, Ian Middleton, in the hope that the council would 'recognise that meat and dairy' is a 'significant contributor to greenhouse gas emissions and global deforestation'. That motion had – somewhat depressingly but predictably – caused quite a ruckus, yet, as Charlie said to Linda when they began chatting earlier today, it all sounded fair and sensible to him...Linda Newbery “This Book is Cruelty-Free – Animals and Us” (Pavilion, July 2021)Off the Leash Podcasts Shortcast #64 Linda Newbery | Ban SnaresOff the Leash Podcasts Shortcast #72 Summer | Feed our FutureFeed our Future Website feedourfuture.co.uk/Feed our Future Facebook page and Twitter feed
Paul Andersen, founder of Independent Architecture, joins the show for a long conversation about his top five buildings in Colorado, the meaning of “good” within architecture, his beginnings at UCLA with Greg Lynn, his times teaching at Cornell, Harvard and UIC, how he started his own firm, and his experience co-curating the US Pavilion at this year's Venice Biennale. After the credits we have an extended conversation where we swap our best architecture school review stories (he does a spot-on Peter Cook impression). He talks about what community means to him, traveling between Denver and Chicago, and we talk more about the idea of “good”. This episode is sponsored by Sierra Pacific Windows and Modern In Denver
Social activism and museum directing---ICA Boston director Jill Medvedow manages to leaven her professional responsibilities with a conscience, and teaches us much in the process. We delve into her stewardship of the 2022 US Pavilion at the Venice Biennale, featuring artist Simone Leigh--and we learn why and how she put the ICA Watershed together, her selection as the subject of an MIT case study about how she aligned stakeholders to realize the ICA Boston by Diller Scofidio + Renfro, her optimistic predictions about progressive values being embraced by museums, the pressures of the art market, ICA Boston's emergence as a collecting institution, and forthcoming exhibitions this autumn.
Social activism and museum directing---ICA Boston director Jill Medvedow manages to leaven her professional responsibilities with a conscience, and teaches us much in the process. We delve into her stewardship of the 2022 US Pavilion at the Venice Biennale, featuring artist Simone Leigh--and we learn why and how she put the ICA Watershed together, her selection as the subject of an MIT case study about how she aligned stakeholders to realize the ICA Boston by Diller Scofidio + Renfro, her optimistic predictions about progressive values being embraced by museums, the pressures of the art market, ICA Boston's emergence as a collecting institution, and forthcoming exhibitions this autumn.
2020 Venice Architecture Biennale co-curators, Paul Preissner (Paul Preissner Architects) & Paul Andersen (Independent Architecture), join the podcast to discuss this year's US Pavilion at the Venice Architecture Biennale, wood framing in American architecture, and the impact of the spectacular on the architecture profession.
Amber Wasinski is an Interior & Project Designer with MSA Design and part time adjunct faculty member for the School of Architecture and Interior Design, DAAP, at the University of Cincinnati. She completed her undergraduate BS Interior Design and Masters of Architecture + International Business Certificate at UC. Her work spans a wide range of content and scales including domestic and international hospitality / entertainment projects to work exhibited in Two Sides of the Border: Reimagining the Mexico-United States Region. She is an NCIDQ Certified Interior Designer, currently working towards architectural licensure, and in her free time she enjoys any opportunity for outdoor adventures. Laila Ammar is a Project Architect & Designer with MSA Design and a part time adjunct faculty for the School of Architecture and Interior Design, DAAP, at the University of Cincinnati – where she also completed her undergraduate BS Arch. She received her Masters of Architecture at the Knowlton School of Architecture at The Ohio State University where she was a part of the research and fabrication team for the 2014 US Pavilion, “OFFICE US” at the Venice Architecture Biennale. She spends her “free” time as a citizen Architect doing advocacy work with The Architecture Lobby and on the board of her neighborhood’s community development corporation, NEST. www.msaarch.com www.daap.uc.edu
2020 Venice Architecture Biennale co-curators, Paul Preissner (Paul Preissner Architects) & Paul Andersen (Independent Architecture), join the podcast to discuss this year's US Pavilion at the Venice Architecture Biennale, wood framing in American architecture, and the impact of the spectacular on the architecture profession
Rick Valicenti (founder and design director of Thirst, a communication design practice for clients in the architectural, performing arts and education communities), Iker Gil (architect, director of MAS Studio, editor in chief of the quarterly design journal, MAS Context), and Jenn Stucker (associate professor and division chair of graphic design at BGSU, founding board member of the American Institute of Graphic Arts, AIGA Toledo) discuss community-based collaborative design. Transcript: Introduction: From Bowling Green State University and the Institute for the Study of Culture and Society, this is BG Ideas. Intro Song Lyrics: I'm going to show you this with a wonderful experiment. Jolie Sheffer: Welcome to the BG Ideas podcast, a collaboration between the Institute for the Study of Culture and Society and the School of Media and Communication at Bowling Green State University. I'm Jolie Sheffer, associate professor of English and american culture studies and the director of ICS. Today we're joined by three guests working in collaborative design fields. First is Rick Valicenti, the founder and design director of Thirst, a communication design practice for clients in the architectural, performing arts and education communities. His work has been exhibited in the Museum of Modern Art and resides in the permanent collections of the Yale University Library, Denver Art Museum, and the Art Institute of Chicago. In 2011, he was honored by the White House with the Smithsonian Cooper-Hewitt National Design Award for communication design. Jolie Sheffer: We're also joined by Iker Gil, an architect, the director of MAS Studio, editor in chief of the quarterly design journal, MAS Context, and the editor of the book, Shanghai Transforming. He curated the exhibition, Bold: Alternative Scenarios for Chicago, included in the inaugural Chicago Architecture Biennial. Iker is the associate curator of the US Pavilion at the 16th Annual Venice Architecture Biennale. In 2010, he received the Emerging Visions Award from the Chicago Architectural Club. Jolie Sheffer: Finally, I'd like to welcome Jenn Stucker an associate professor and division chair of graphic design at BGSU. Her work has been published in several books on design and she's received various awards including two international design awards from How Magazine for her community based works in Toledo. She's also a founding board member of the American Institute of Graphic Arts, AIGA Toledo. And she previously co-chaired two national AIGA design education conferences. Jolie Sheffer: The three of them are here to talk to me as part of the Edwin H. Simmons Creative Minds series. Thank you and welcome to BGSU. I'm thrilled to discuss more of your work on creativity and collaboration. I like to start by having you each give a little background on your current work and how you came into the kind of design work that you're doing. So Rick, how did your career change from your time as a student at BGSU to your work now? What are some of those major u-turns or forks in the road for you? Rick Valicenti: Well, thank you. That's a good question. That's a really good question. Okay, so let me fast backwards to 1973 when I graduated from Bowling Green. I went back to Pittsburgh, spent some time in a steel mill for two years, went to graduate school at the University of Iowa. Came to Chicago afterwards with two graduate degrees in photography and discovered that I was not interested in photographing hotdogs, cornflakes and beer. So with that I thought I would leverage a time in the writer's workshop doing a little bit of letter press work as well as my time at Bowling Green studying design. And I thought I'll be a designer. It wasn't that easy. But it has been a journey for now almost four decades since then to get to a place where I feel there's relevance in what I do. And that has been the challenge, and it continues to be the challenge. Design, as you know, is a practice that has at its core, or patronage, somebody else. Rick Valicenti: In fact, it's been said you have to be given permission to practice graphic design. Not necessarily the case, you can do self-initiated projects. And it was in leveraging what I learned in graduate school, which was how to make up a project, how to provide for myself a thesis and then create work in response to that. That has allowed me to both do that on my own as well as in collaboration with other people. And then to encourage younger designers under some guidance to do the same. And of late, the more interesting work has been work that has been related to an issue, not unlike the work that Jenn practices in her classwork. But to me that's the most fulfilling and it was unfortunately not the work that I showed because it was work I was prepared to end the evening with. But I chose because we had been blabbing for so long last night to just stop early. But it's okay. Jolie Sheffer: Tell me what led you to start your own firm? Rick Valicenti: I was one of those lucky designers who, while it was difficult to crack the Chicago design scene, two years of doing what I would refer to as thankless design work, design work where I was asked to do something prescriptive. Like do this by Friday. Yes, I could do that. I was quite good at it. I lucked out by having the opportunity to be the dark room guy for a very reputable Chicago designer, who was at that time 63 years old. And so in his last three and a half years of practice I had moved from the new guy in the studio to the last employee he had. And it was a fantastic experience to be in the company of real design practice. Design practice that understood the history, it understood the present, and it was looking out to the future. This guy was connected to the other thought leaders in the Chicago design community and I had access to them even though it was vicarious. Jolie Sheffer: Great. Thank you. Iker, tell us about your journey into Chicago architecture and the current kinds of collaboration you do. How has your approach to design changed over time and what were some of those key junctures for you? Iker: So I'm originally from Bilbao, which is a city in the North of Spain in the Basque country. And I think a lot of the changes in design and a lot of the ways that I've been thinking had been motivated also by the change of place or how the people that I've encounter or any other aspects that really change as I move from other places. So from Bilbao I went to Barcelona to study architecture. I had the chance there to not only have the professors that were faculty there, but also other visiting professors, like David Chipperfield and Kazuyo Sejima. So that was a way of beginning to connect with other experiences that maybe were not the local ones. And I was very interested in expanding that. And I've had the luck to get a scholarship from IIT in Chicago to go there for a year. Iker: So it was a little bit coincidentally in a way that I ended up in Chicago. And I was there for a year as an exchange student, I still had to do my thesis so I went back to Spain. But there was something about Chicago, a apart from my girlfriend that now is my wife, who is from Chicago. But there was something very intriguing about the city, a lot of potential, very different from being in Barcelona. But there was something always in Barcelona that was interesting for me about the cultural aspect of architecture. There was the aspects of people building a significant building or just a civic building that there was always a publication and an exhibition, a way of coming together to talk about why those things were important. Iker: So when I went to Chicago, when I moved back and I did my master's, I worked for an office. I was always interested in the ADL, the community, the design community, the architecture community. How do you strengthen that and how do you create the platforms to do that beyond what you can design? So I decided at some point that I really wanted to make sure that I did both of those things. And I went on my own about 11 years ago just to make sure that I could create the designs within my office, but create other platforms for others to have that conversation. And more recently I've been able to create the structures to support or organize design competitions and really began being interested in not only the final product, but how do you structure the conditions for those things to happen. Jolie Sheffer: So you're talking about not just designing buildings, but designing communities and relationships. Iker: Yep. And I think that's a role of, in my case, an architect or designers. Like the work that you do, but also the work in the city that you do. And how are you part of the community, and also how are you proactive shaping that community? Not something that you want to benefit from someone else's effort to structure something. What is what you can do and why you can give to the community back? Jolie Sheffer: Great. Jenn, talk to us about your path into graphic design and how your approach has shifted over time. Jenn Stucker: So I was at graduate here at BGSU. Very proud of the training and the experience that I had from Ron Giacomini, a chair that Rick also had the opportunity to study under. And when I graduated I went right out into the field, I got a job in graphic design. And I think was pretty good at my craft and pretty good at making. And also at the same time pursuing this educational path. I am originally a transplant from Colorado, I guess you could say. And one of the things about the Toledo area is there's this "neh" mentality. It's the rust belt. I- Jolie Sheffer: Better days are behind us. Jenn Stucker: Yeah. [crosstalk 00:09:16]. Yes. It's definitely like, why did you move from Colorado to Toledo? Is usually the question that I get asked. And I'm always like, wow, there's so many great things here. You're four hours from Chicago, you're this far from Toronto, you're this far from here. In Colorado you're four hours from the border of Wyoming, at least where I live. Right? And you're looking at the same topography and you're not getting any cultural change. And so for me, my family was here. My husband and his family. And so I was here for the long haul. Jenn Stucker: So the idea really just became, I need to bloom where I'm planted. I need to make this space and place better, and contribute to it and work towards that. Changing the attitude, how do we create positivity in this community? And so I started getting involved in creating projects that really illuminated Toledo in a positive way. And so then I reflected back on the fact that I wasn't necessarily armed with that as a student, with that understanding of the fact that I had agency and power that I could do something. I didn't necessarily have training with, how do you collaborate and get a, you know, writing a grant to get the funding for this? And who do I need to talk to and who needs to bring this to the table? And all of those things. Jenn Stucker: So part of that I think now is coming to what I do as an educator, is to show those students. I tell them, I have no idea what I'm doing. I'm completely fumbling through this. I don't know what I'm doing. This dots project in Toledo that I'm literally the one that's going to be photographing all the dots around Toledo, or trying to find spaces in January and it's cold. And then actually putting them down on the ground and actually taking them off the ground and doing these sort of things. I don't know that when I'm creating the idea. But I know it has to get done and I'm going to do that. And the fact that I'm just Jenn is what I tell them. I'm just one person, I'm not any different than you. And so I try to give them a lot of power that they can do that thing that they want to make change for. Jolie Sheffer: You're all talking about very place-based design practices, or in different ways your work is all very much about locating yourself, right? And building in relationship to that community, and creating community. Could you give an example, Rick, of one of your projects that had a very Chicago-centric, and how that place shaped the process and the collaborations that you developed? Rick Valicenti: With pleasure. In 2016, I was the artist in residence at Loyola University. And there we devoted an entire year to prototyping empathetic ways of grieving for those who were left behind by gun violence. That was a very Chicago-centric theme. And it was something that I was curious about beyond the candle vigil, right? Or the protest march. Are there other ways we can come together both as community led by design in order to acknowledge and honor the life lost? And of course help the healing process for the families left behind. That was a very place specific design assignment. The difference was we were doing it on the North side, and a lot of the activity, gun violent activity was happening on the South side. Not all of it because in the building that we were located, in the alley right next door one of the students had been shot. Rick Valicenti: Down the street the young photographer had been shot and killed on that street. So as they call it, the franchising of gun violence had migrated North to the Rogers Park and Edgewater area, which is where Loyola is located. It made it more real and more tangible, but the prototyping of these empathetic gestures was, I think, healing for all of us. And I've been rewarded by that project ever since. And I really want to see now if something like that can migrate to other cities. And I've been talking to a few people like, wouldn't El Paso benefit from this kind of intervention? Dayton, Ohio, would they not benefit from it? Jolie Sheffer: And could you talk through what that project actually ended up looking like? Rick Valicenti: I'll give you an example. There were 20 students in the class, half of them were from the fine arts area, half of them were from design related fields. And so they all had different approaches to it. And every class began with somebody from the outside. Rick Valicenti: Okay? And I thought this was important. And Iker knows this model of practice that I use, I call it moving design is what I have named the umbrella. But I'll give you an example of three kinds of people who came to the class. One person we arranged for a car to pick up the head of the emergency room at Stroger, which is the hospital, Cook County hospital. And this guy was picked up in a car, came to our class in his [Ohar 00:14:07] blacks with his red tennis shoes. And it was the day after a very violent weekend. This guy showed up shell shocked. You could just see the trauma in his face. He never made eye contact with the students. He was a young guy, maybe 38 or something, had his head down as he spoke. And that was a moving moment. More for me, I think, than anybody else. Rick Valicenti: But it was like, oh my God, here's a first responder who's there and he told us of some of the things that he had seen that have kept him from sleeping. We also had Emory Douglas, who was the communication director, minister of the Black Panthers. So Emory talked about the use of graphic design to move an agenda. And how an unskilled, unfunded initiative of communication design could migrate into the public through the printed ephemera. And he was there to really rally these students. That was fantastic. And then another woman, her name was Cecelia Williams. Cecelia Williams was 28 years old. She is an activist. She's a mother. And in her 28 years she has lost 29 family and friends to gun violence. The first one was her second grade teacher. She came to the class, again, with her version of PTSD. Moved the students and begged the students to do something. Rick Valicenti: Just something. It was in the form of just write the mothers of one of these victims a sympathy card after you hear the headline. Right? That's a simple thing. Or, gather all your cards and one person just take it to the funeral home and leave it in the basket. Simple moment. If you'd like I could share you an example of one of the projects, how we manifested our work at the end. We had lots of installations and interventions around the area, but one in particular was a community based exercise. I showed them an image of logging in Wisconsin. Tree logging. And those images that we're all familiar with are the felled trees in the shallow water, and the guys are standing on the tree trunks. And I said, it wasn't too much earlier before that picture was taken that those were living organisms, but now they're felled to the ground. And let's just imagine that we use the tree trunk as a symbol of those who are fallen. Rick Valicenti: And we've returned them to their vertical position. So that was the form of it. And then we started to talk about, well what could we put on those and what is the form? Are we going to be having tree trunks, that seems wrong. So we ordered lots of very long and very huge custom mailing tubes from a firm in Chicago called Chicago Mailing Tubes. And they made 24 inch, 18 inch and 12 inch mailing tubes of varying lengths. We had them wrapped in white paper and then the students took the grid of Chicago and wrapped each of those trees with black tape to suggest, not replicate, the grid of the city. And then we invited the community to come. And we had the list of the 760 some victims from the previous year to write their first names in whatever black calligraphy we could, whether it was with a Sharpie or whether it was with a brush pen. Rick Valicenti: And to see the community members come together with the students, honoring everybody with the names. And so, okay, that's one facet of it. And we have all these tubes now, and we put end caps on the tubes and the students started to talk about things that they would like to say. If you had to say something to a mother, to a community, to just reduce the pain of gun violence, what might it sound like? Everyone is a hero. I miss you, I miss you, I miss you. Whatever those messages were. And they typeset them in a black and white type, in all caps in a Gothic typeface on an orange disk. That orange disk had a hole cut in the middle and there was an orange piece of a cord, nylon cord, that we knotted. And that provided now these tree trunk-like forms to be carried. Rick Valicenti: And so there was a procession around town into the quad of the campus until they... Oh, I'm sorry. When the morning started all of the trunks were there in the center of the quad. That's right. Like the felled tree trunks. And then the procession started. And there were prayers read, and some music played, and some dancers from the music school came and they did a performative dance. A kind of celebration and resurrection, if you will. And then we were all invited to grab the chords and walk the trunks back to the alley where this student had been shot in the back, and return them to their vertical position. And there, I don't know, there we just reflected on it. But it was all quite moving. And we had it filmed and photographed and there was the record of it that could carry on. Rick Valicenti: We thought that could live in other places. The alderman, I'm sorry if I'm going on so long, I'm taking up this whole hour. But the alderman, his name is Harry Osterman, he was also invited to come. And he said, you know what, I would like that to be re-installed in my local park. And sure enough we installed it in his park and complete with all of the rides that a kid would have, the seesaw on the slide. A couple weeks later we get a call from alderman Osterman's office saying, it seems that there has been some violence in the park and your display has been vandalized. In fact, it has been destroyed. It has been cut up. It has been sawed. It has been smashed. Rick Valicenti: And I thought immediately, oh my God, the last thing we need is for Loyola to be a headline. And this good intention to be diminished. So we quickly scrambled and we went and we cleaned up the site and we got a chainsaw, we rented a chainsaw and we cut the things up so that we could transport it. And here what had happened was the other gang from the other side of the street was upset that, right, there had been some franchise in some retaliation of a recent shooting and this was the way that they could mark their territory. So there's lots healing that needs to be done, but design was certainly there to put a mirror to it. To make a good intention. And to certainly reveal the scab or the wound. Jolie Sheffer: Iker, can you give us an example of some of your place specific work? Maybe one particular project. You talked last night about the Marina Towers. I don't know if you want to talk about that or feel free to take that in a different direction. Iker: Yeah. Maybe one thing that I think is more important is structurally I think being in Chicago is what has saved my practice. I think a lot of the opportunities of doing self-initiated projects or projects that I was particularly interested are allowed to happen in Chicago because maybe there is not the pressure that there is in New York or any other places. And I think the idea of having space as a designer and an architect to think about things was something that I found very important and very unique to Chicago. Iker: So I think in a way, the way I was trained and the way I practice right now is different because of being in Chicago. And particularly that project of Marina City, I think it's one that it's very specific to the idea of Chicago about how it reflects how I work and how the projects evolve. And taking one icon of the city and really using that for me as a personal interest in understanding not only the building but understanding the architect, the ambitions of the architect. Why that building was so forward thinking when it opened in the early 60s. And then beginning to understand, how do you capture that value? Iker: How do you tell that story to people who are not architects? What are the tools that you have? And in that case I worked with Andreas Larsson, a photographer, to really begin to capture the diversity of the community. And it was a way of saying, you don't have to read plans in sections and elevations or use models to communicate the value of a building. There are other ways that maybe you can engage. And then through that you can learn some of the other things. Iker: And then that was exhibited, and then it has continued in doing then renovations in the building with Ellipsis Architecture. So always in collaboration with someone else. And the idea there is that, how do you celebrate the spacial qualities of the marina architect, but at the same time making it modern so new people can be living there. So it's an interesting project that has been ongoing for 10 years. And it just summarizes my interest in Bertrand Goldberg. And then as you work with other people, as you evolve or you have other skills, you can really begin to communicate that in different ways. And I can see that he's probably not going to be the last renovation or not the last project in some shape or form that I'm going to do about that building and that architect, which I think it's fantastic. Jolie Sheffer: Well there's something really interesting. You said something about this at your talk about how a project never really ends, it just sort of evolves into some new shape. Right? And clearly that work is an example of that notion that you never really have an end point. And your example too, Rick, went that way. That it takes on a new form and it may be not what you intended or what you imagined, but you have to let that life go on. Iker: I think in the end they are like your own personal obsessions. They are your interest, but it's sometimes it's an interest and sometimes it's an obsession. And they are in the back of your mind and then there is something that happens that it comes forward again, you have the opportunity to do it and then he goes back. But there are things that obviously you have a certain attachment. And then you realize that there are a lot of buildings, in this case, that share some of the ambitions because they were built in the same period. And then you can make a comparison or connect it to other experiences in other cities. So something that is very local and particular you can engage in a conversation with something that is happening in other cities. So I find it very particular, I never let go of those interests. It's just they transform and the outcome is very different. Jolie Sheffer: And Jenn, you mentioned the dots project. Could you talk about what that was and how that was very much play specific to Toledo? Jenn Stucker: Absolutely. So the genesis of that project came from the Arts Commission. I'd previously had done a banner project for them collaboratively with my colleague Amy Fiddler. And at the time I was president of AIG Toledo. And they came to us to say, oh we're having the GAS conference, the Glass Art Society is going to be coming. It's an international conference and maybe you could do some banners again. And I thought about that and really wanted to do something different. And one of the things about banners is the passivity that it has. And you have to be looking up, kind of encountering those. And so I've always been fascinated with maps and the "you are here" dot specifically. When I go to museums, when I go to zoos, wherever I'm going, I look for that and it gives me a sense of place. And the idea of sense of place seemed very important here at this time. Jenn Stucker: They were going to have people coming from all over the world. What is our sense of place? What is Toledo? And knowing that I wanted people to discover the city, and hopefully through walking. And how could I branch out into various places? So thinking about this dot of "you are here" and wanting people to discover the city, came up with this idea of three foot circular dots that had artwork on them created by a hundred different artists in Toledo that were site specific to that place. So working with the Arts Commission, what are the signature places in Toledo? The Toledo public library, the San Marcos Taqueria. It could be anywhere within the Toledo area, Point Place. So they helped curate that list. We talked about signature points, reached out to all of those establishments to say, more or less, congratulations, you're going to be part of this project. So that they would know that there was going to be a dot in front of their place. Jenn Stucker: And then having artists participate in creating those dots. And then on the dots was a QR code, and this was 2012, so it was still kind of cool then. And the idea was that you would scan the dot and you could then get the background information about the place in which you were standing. So you would learn about St. Patrick's Cathedral and get more information. And then to also give honor to the artist that they too would have their artist statement and what inspired the artwork that they created. And so one of the things about public art is that oftentimes if it's a sculpture, it's a very place specific, and only if you go to that place. And it's typically usually one artist. And so what I really liked about this project was that it was a hundred different artists that were participating in this. Jenn Stucker: And it was originally developed for outsiders to discover Toledo. The things that happened secondarily to that were amazing, where I was getting emails from people that had read about it in the newspaper. And one couple in particular said, we've read about this, we went out to start looking for these dots. They collected 25 of them and ended up at San Marcos Taqueria, said they had the best tacos they've ever had, had no idea it was even there. And they said they were looking forward to discovering more of their city. And I was like, that's a mic drop kind of moment. It couldn't have been any better than having people really realize the great things that we have in the community. So the byproduct of that was just, like I said, people seeing the great things that were here. Jenn Stucker: I wish I'd partnered with a cell phone company at the time because we had people that are actually buying cell phones. Because really, the iPhone had only come out, what, 2007 or something. So we're not too far to not everybody having a smartphone. There were people that were going out to buy a smart phone so that they could participate in this project. And there was a scavenger hunt component too, so we had an app for it. And the first hundred people to digitally collect 25 dots got a custom silkscreened edition poster. And so people are posting on Facebook and finding this dot and taking their children out. And I don't know, couldn't ask for a better project. Jolie Sheffer: We're going to take a short break. Thank you for listening to the BG Ideas podcast. Speaker 1: If you are passionate about big ideas, consider sponsoring this program. To have your name or organization mentioned here, please contact us at ics@bgsu.edu. Jolie Sheffer: Welcome back. Today I'm talking with Rick Valicenti, Iker Gil, and Jenn Stucker about the importance of interdisciplinary collaboration in creative fields. One of the things that you both talked about during your visit was the idea that the form of a given project will change, right? And I think Iker, you put it as something like, what's the story I want to tell and what's going to be the best form to tell that story? So how do you go about, what is part of your process and figuring out that answer to that question of the relationship between form and story? Iker: Yeah, I think that came out about the work and the way we structure MAS Context. And then really the first thing is just framing what the topic that we want to do, and then who should be the voices that need to be part of that issue. And sometimes you realize that you need something that sets the ground and it might be more academic. It might be an essay that really gives the shape to that. And then there are many other elements that can compliment, that can contra, that could take another direction that comes in the form of a short essay. And you need to be very aware. I think that a lot of the work that I do is actually paying attention to what other people are doing in their work. So whenever there is an issue that is coming together, I know I already have in my head what's the work that everybody's doing so I can make those connections. Iker: So it's really understanding how they work, what they are trying to say, what's the shape that it can be. And we've had, in the issues, we have long essays, short essays, photo essays, diagrams, poems. But also the people who write, they don't come from all the academic world. And some of the most interesting articles have come from people who are just residents in a building. And they can tell a story much better than an academic that has talk about housing. And one of the examples is we've done this for 10 years, and then the most read article is about Cabrini–Green, about our resident who grew up there and live there. And we walk with him, with Andreas Larsson actually. And we told him just let's walk around the neighborhood and tell us the stories of what are the meaningful places for you here that you grew up here and your families. Iker: And we just took photographs of that and we made captions of that. And it really was a way for us to understand what it means to leave there. Yes, there are some negative things, but there are many other positive things about Cabrini–Green that they all mask under headlines and other things from other people who have no relationship. So yes, there are many people who write about public housing, about Cabrini–Green, but his point of view and the way to talk about it in a very clear, succinct, and just experiential way of there. It was remarkable and it obviously resonated with the rest of the people because it's still the most read article. And it was in issue three, 10 years ago. Rick Valicenti: We should also keep in mind that Cabrini–Green, if we're talking about form, no longer exists. That building complex has been raised and it's gone. Now it's a Target. Is it not? Iker: Yep. It is. So it's like, when you demolish buildings you just don't demolish the actual building, you demolish the structures, the society, the relationship, everything that is built around that. So the void that it's in the city with the destruction of public housing is not just the building, it's all the fabric, the social fabric that got destroyed. And it's very complicated to regain. And unfortunately nothing really... It's happening at the level that it should be done. Rick Valicenti: And at the time you had an idea that it was going to be demolished or did you not know it was going to be demolished at that time? Iker: I did know that it was going to get demolished. Rick Valicenti: Oh, you did. Okay. But in either case you have left behind through the medium of design and this documentation a real important record of what it was like there at that moment. Iker: Yeah. Because in a way, these stories are not just headlines that once the headline leaves the story leaves. These are people who this is the place where they grew up. Where they live. Where they have their family. And then once the buildings are remove, they have to keep going with their life. They have to do other things. So it is really unfair to just live through headline after headline. The city is a much more complex thing. And I think one of the goals that we tried to do with the journal is really, yes, talk about issues that are important. But that there is a legacy that those things are looked in depth, that someone can go back 40 years later and finding that it's still relevant because there's another situation that contextualizes in a new way. Iker: So this is just a series of thinking that evolves and it grows and builds from each other. But I think there needs to be some, like paying attention to all these issues and build from those rather than be surprised by the latest thing that happens. And then once it goes, it just, oh, it's all sold. Jolie Sheffer: Could you talk, Rick, about your own forays into book work, as you describe it, and why that form made sense for some of those projects? Rick Valicenti: The book format I particularly love, I love its linearity but I also love its ability to be opened at any page. I also love its form, its tactile nature, its ability to change voices and change perceptions as you change the tactile experience when your hand touches a page. Change the paper, change the size of it. All of those things are available tools to find engagement in that which is being communicated and that which is being received. So you know, perhaps as a writer, you're able to capture your thinking in your typing. Jolie Sheffer: Absolutely. I don't know what I'm thinking until I'm typing it. Rick Valicenti: That's right. Until after maybe you've read it and say, oh my God, that's really special. But the designer takes that source material, if you will, and either amplifies it or adds harmony to it in a harmonic sound, or adds depth to it, or adds another perspective. And so I'm keenly aware when I'm making a book that it's not a typesetting assignment, that it really is a duet at the most basic level with the content. Whether it's with the author, whether it's with a photographer, whether it's with both. And how can you bring something to life in a way that under different hands or different perspectives or different budgets or whatever, it would sound different. Rick Valicenti: And just like you can do that when you're reading a poem, or a kid reading a kid's book, you know it sounds different than the parent. It happens when people perform songs, other than the person who wrote the song. So I like the book form, but I really like its linearity. And I must admit, when non-linearity was all the rage with interactive media, I was like, what's that about here? What's happening? I'm getting used to it, but that doesn't mean I need to like it. Jolie Sheffer: What about you Jenn? You've published work in book form. What for you is your particular process in thinking about that as a medium? Jenn Stucker: Well most of the publications, I guess probably been a little bit similar, it's been mostly for documentation that this happening happened has been a big part of that. The other part is most of the work has been with recent alums or with students, and so there's something about creating the object that adds that secondary level of, I guess, accomplishment, right? Or achievement, or that this thing... I guess the same thing is it happened. And so if we have evidence of that. I taught at SACI in Florence, Italy, through our program here at BGSU, last summer and we self published a book out of that called the FLRX times 14. Or 14 of us and putting material together to sort of, what was our experience here in Florence? All being American citizens coming into this place and space. And I don't see those students again. Right? They were from University of Michigan, Penn State, Parsons, couple from BGSU, Marshall. And it was a nice moment to capture and make a capsule, I guess, of that experience. Jolie Sheffer: Well, I want to thank you so much for taking the time to talk with me. It has been a real delight. Our producers for this podcast are Chris Covera and Marco Mendoza with help from Aaron Dufala, Hannah Santiago and Kaleah Ivory. Research assistants for this podcast was provided by ICS undergraduate intern Tay Sauer. This conversation was recorded in the Stanton audio recording studio in the Michael and Sara Kuhlin Center at Bowling Green State University.
Mimi Zeiger is a writer, critic, curator and editor. She's written for a variety of publications including The New York Times, Dwell, Domus, and The Architectural Review and is the founder of Loud Paper, a zine and digital publication that sought to increase the output of architectural discourse. She was also the co-curator for the US Pavilion at the 2018 Venice Architecture Biennalle, which had the theme "Dimensions of Citizenship". In this episode, Mimi and I talk about how she started writing after beginning a career as an architect, the role of the critic, and why we need architecture and design critics in today's political climate. Links from this episode can be found at scratchingthesurface.fm.
Donna, Ken and Fred all converged in the meatspace that was the AIA National Convention last week in Philadelphia – to explore the massive Expo floor, visit local architecture, vote on resolutions and oh yes, those keynotes (!) from Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Neri Oxman and Rem Koolhaas. Spoiler alert: Rem's was the most boring. For more information about the resolutions up for debate at the convention, check out our episode with Gregory Walker covering unpaid internships and WTC-truthers. And don't forget to check out our ongoing coverage of the 2016 Venice Biennale – we collaborated with the Taubman students setting up the US Pavilion, have a bunch of interviews with curators in the Features, and will soon be publishing dispatches from Venice to the News. Shownotes: Fred Scharmen's work with outer space for The Working Group on Adaptive Systems LMN Architects in Seattle named AIA's 2016 firm of the year Architecture Lobby's collaboration with Slought on (Re)Working Architecture Neri Oxman’s 'Qamar' wearable for extraterrestrial environments
Season two of Archinect Sessions premiered last week – featuring a discussion on the Chicago Architecture Biennial with Log director (and co-curator of the US Pavilion for the 2016 Venice Biennale) Cynthia Davidson – and to finish out our coverage of CAB, we're posting the "Next Up" live-interviews we did in Chicago as Mini-Sessions, continuing from the interviews done at Jai & Jai Gallery in Los Angeles. Due to a most unfortunate technical glitch in Chicago, the second half of live interviews were lost – so some Chicago interviews were recorded on another date. You can listen to past Mini-Sessions here. For our first Mini-Session recorded during the Biennial's opening weekend, we spoke with Urtzi Grau and Cristina Goberna Pesudo of Fake Industries Architectural Agonism.
It's great to be back. Our second season of Archinect Sessions premieres today in a new, shorter format, with an episode devoted to the Chicago Architecture Biennial, and featuring special guest Cynthia Davidson, director of Log and co-curator of the US Pavilion for the 2016 Venice Biennale. Keep a look out as well for more Mini-Sessions, featuring interviews from the Biennial. In other podcasting news, we're going to be launching a brand new podcast early next week, focusing exclusively on interviews. You can keep up-to-date on all our podcasting news by following us on Twitter, @archsessions, and let us know what you think by rating us on iTunes.
Inadvertently, this episode is all about food – where it comes from, where we eat it, and how it shapes national identity. Our discussion on food and design starts in Los Angeles, where Norm's Restaurant recently received "historic and cultural" landmark status, and a tamale-shaped building strives for the same (just one of LA's many proud programmatic architectures). Shifting east, we extol the multi-uses and virtues of Waffle House, and praise the Waffle House index. This dovetailed across the Atlantic into our interview with James Biber of Biber Architects about his design for the US Pavilion at the Milan EXPO, entitled "American Food 2.0: United to Feed the Planet". We ask him about balancing corporate and national identities in food, and what it's like having the US State Department as a client.
*Subscribe @ iTunes* Episode 77 is all about Shanghai… 2010 World's Fair that is. Brent Young returns from his trip in China and brings along some amazing conversation about the US Pavilion for the 2010 Expo in Shanghai China. Brad Shelton-Director of Entertainment Experiences for BRC Imagination Arts and Urso Chappell of ExpoMuseum.com join Doug and Brent in the Season Pass Discussion Room for some “Breaking News” and inside information straight from the people involved with the 2010 U.S. Pavilion. You don't want to miss this!! Join the fun on the Season Pass Discussion Boards – www.seasonpassforums.com Check out the website www.seasonpasspodcast.com - Join the Season Pass Forums when your over there and become our friend on our new MySpace and FaceBook Sites! : ) Want your “Theme/Amusement Park Fun” Pictures on the Season Pass Website? Send them to seasonpasspodcast@gmail.com or doug@seasonpasspodcast.com and we'll post it! Contact us: doug@seasonpasspodcast.com brent@seasonpasspodcast.com matt@seasonpasspodcast.com Call the Hotline with Park Trip Reports, Podcast Comments, or Anything else you would like to announce. – 1-916-248-5524 Thanx to each one of you for listening to the show. Your support is extremely appreciated. The International Authority on Everything Theme Park Related. Join a Cast of Experts and Fans Every Week On an Informative Immersive Experience into the World of Rides, Attractions and Parks.© 2009 Season Pass Podcast
*Subscribe @ iTunes* Welcome to episode 69 Dudes!! This week we interview Composer/Sound Designer David Kneupper of Kneupper Music. We discuss the challenges and perks of composing music for Themed Attractions and Parks as well as some of David's projects- Jaws The Ride (USF). The ET Adventure (USF), Waterworld Stunt Show (USH), Time Riders (Movie Park Germany), The Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum (Springfield, Illinois), The US Pavilion for World Expo (Aichi, Japan), and more! Please Enjoy! Join the fun on the Season Pass Discussion Boards – www.seasonpassforums.com Check out the website www.seasonpasspodcast.com - Join the Season Pass Forums when your over there and become our friend on our new MySpace and FaceBook Sites! : ) Contact us: doug@seasonpasspodcast.com brent@seasonpasspodcast.com matt@seasonpasspodcast.com Call the Hotline with Park Trip Reports, Podcast Comments, or Anything else you would like to announce. – 1-916-248-5524 Thanx to each one of you for listening to the show. Your support is extremely appreciated. © 2009 Season Pass Podcast