Art as Activism: A Warm-Up // All Day Workshop Event
Montserrat Galleries has organized a day filled hands on workshops with alternative artists redefining activism to take place this Friday, Oct. 19th. Participants will be planting trees, yarn bombing, creating home-made inflatables and the night will conclude with the first Contemporary Cocktail of the semester!
Art as Activism: A Warm-up
Friday, Oct.19
Artist Talks & Workshops: 10 am – 5 pm
Contemporary Cocktail: Creativity & Contemporary Activism: 7 – 9 pm
Why a warm-up? Montserrat Galleries designed the Fall 2012 semester around the theme of Art as Activism, culminating in the academic symposium Agents of Change on Oct. 26 & 27 with a Keynote speech by Frida Kahlo and Kathe Kollwitz of the Guerrilla Girls. With a topic as important and broad as Art as Activism, it is Montserrat’s duty to offer students the opportunity to engage with art as activism first hand with a range of artists in order to better prepare them for their experience of Agents of Change and beyond.
Click below the cut to see details.
Cities Filled With Fruit Trees: Lisa Gross
Friday 10/19 10 – 11:30 am
Location: 236 Cabot Street
Are you interested in how your creative activism can reach a broader audience, and how can that audience enhance the development of your cause? Boston Tree Party founder Lisa Gross gives us the how and why to collaborate with community-based organizations when creating socially engaged projects.
Portable Utopias: Kevin Clancy
Friday 10/19 12 – 3 pm
Location: 301 Gallery
Creating inflatable spaces for collective dreaming, students will explore inflatables as a form of portable architecture that provide ephemeral platforms for cultural exchange. Participants will learn methods of fusing and joining plastic, consider various geometric forms and collaboratively build inflatable structures in small groups.
KNIT/NET: Maria Molteni
Friday 10/19 3 – 5 pm
Location: Oddfellows, Room 203
Basketball was created in Springfield, MA in 1981 by Dr. James Naismith who recycled a peach basket as the first hoop. Today, nets help break a ball’s fall and give players a sense of depth and beyond that, nets add to the auditory, kinetic and aesthetic experience of basketball. The New Crafts Artists in Action need your help to bring this form back to its roots while yarn-bombing to cure Empty Net Syndrome. (ENS). Keep an eye out for abandoned hoops in your neighborhood, scoop some plastic bags out of your pantry, and meet us at the Oddfellows Building where we’ll teach you how to turn these recycled materials into yarn and make your own basketball nets! If your game, bring your ball and brush up on some handling drills with Coach MOLTENi. Maria is interested in Art as an act of gift giving, reassessment of authorship via appropriation, social spectacle, and expression of support/protest by way of DIY, graffiti, and/or hand-made techniques.
Contemporary Cocktail: Creativity and Contemporary Activism
Friday 10/19 7 – 9 pm
Guests: Greg Cook, Lisa Gross, Maria Molteni & Kevin Clancy
Location: Student Lounge, Hardie Building
What role does creativity play in contemporary activism? How are artists defining the activist landscape? Join faculty Greg Cook with artist/activists Lisa Gross, Maria Molteni and Kevin Clancy to discuss. Contemporary Cocktail is an evening event where our visiting artists are invited to join members of the Montserrat community and our student body for an open discussion on relevant arts related issues.
Email [email protected] to sign up today!
This event will be the sneak-peak of this semester’s two-day academic symposium NEXT Friday and Saturday (Oct. 26 & 27), Agents of Change: Art as Activism, featuring various presentations and a keynote from Kathe Kollwitz and Frida Kahlo, original members of the Guerrilla Girls. All students, faculty, alumni and friends must register for the event, and can do so here. On Friday, we will have lectures, panels and the keynote and on Saturday there are four studio workshops that relate to the theme.