Blog - The Project Room

Podcast Episode 21

Displacement: Visual Artist Veit Stratmann Paris-based artist Veit Stratmann, who presented the work title L'Aquila at The Project Room in 2012, has made a practice of researching and writing about places of massive upheaval and its impact on the people who have lived there. After the recent terrorist attacks in Paris which took place near his home, we had a conversation about the connections between this event and his work, and what motivates him to be an artist, especially during difficult times.Notes from the artist: The picture below were taken in early December 2015 during a visit to Addis-Ababa. I was invited there as an echo to the L'Aquila project as there are parallels in the progressive dissolution of the city, namely the clearing out a 700 acre wide neighborhood along the Bantyketu River in the absolute center of the city. This historical and socially crucial neighborhood was evacuated, bulldozed and then fenced in. Nothing happened since. Former inhabitants described the neighborhood to me as a place of high social coherence, mutual support and solidarity. But I heard that it had a high crime rate as well. This crime rate was often given as the reason for the destruction of the neighborhood. But most of the former inhabitants firmly believe the that the real reason was that the authorities considered their neighborhood as too ugly to be looked at from the national Palace, situated in the immediate vicinity. After the destruction of the neighborhood and its fencing off, the inhabitants who could afford it were relocated in condominiums outside the city limits. Those who couldn't pay simply became homeless, living in the streets. Naturally, in the process, the social coherence and the dense network of solidarity of the former neighborhood disappeared. About Veit:Born in Bochum (Germany), Veit Stratmann lives in Paris. From 1981 to 1986 Stratmann studied fine arts at the Ecole Supérieur des Arts Décoratifs de Strasbourg, France and the Staatliche Akademie der Bildenen Künste in Düsseldorf, Germany as well as History and Political Sciences at the Albert Ludwigs Universität in Freiburg, Germany. Veit has exhibited widely and internationally. At the Museum Folkwang in Essen, Fondation Serralves in Porto, Musée d’Art Contemporain du Val de Marne MAC/VAL, Vitry sur Seine (France) , Sox in Berlin, Le Centre d’Art et de Diffusion Clark in Montréal, CAPC-Musée à Bordeaux, The Project Art Centre in Dublin, The Taedok Science Town in Taejon (South Korea), LiveInYourHead-Institut Curatorial de la Haute Ecole d’Art et de Design, Geneve, L’Institut d’Art Comtemprain in Villeurbanne, The Anderson Gallery at the Virginia Commenwealth University in Richmond, Virginia, The Nevada State Museum of Art, Reno, Nevada, La Fondation Miro in Barcelone, Le Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, le Saarlandmuseum à Saarbrücken and Galerie Chez Valentin in Paris and more recently at the Suyama Space in Seattle. Stratmann has given multiple lectures and participated in various symposiums in Europe, North and South America and Africa. The “imposible tasks” surfaced in the media of many countries, as proposals in the form of lectures, press articles and web sites. The developpement of the newest of those projects just started in Addis Abeba.

Podcast Episode 20

Learning Outside The Classroom: Electronic Artist Michna Adrian Michna learned the trombone as a child, which led to experiments with electronic sounds (for example, gently squeezing a friend's cat to generate a squeak) and now to an established career as a DJ and electronic musician. Here, he shares his perspective on what makes a good song, how college transformed his musical style, and advice for young musicians. Have a listen! Michna live at work during a 2013 tour in which he built a portable music set-up that fit into two custom suitcases. Using two tiny projectors shooting into mirrors and reflecting onto the weather balloons, he placed a strobe underneath his DJ table that was triggered with his foot, while projecting footage of each city that he had shot earlier that day onto the balloons.

Podcast Episode 19:

The New Art Marketplace: Digital Artist Kevin McCoy Artist and Monegraph Founder and CEO Kevin McCoy In 2011, New York-based digital artists Kevin and Jennifer McCoy created Northwest Passing for TPR; but instead of presenting what one might expect, they offered visitors to the space a live improvisational theater experiment featuring professional actors giving fake lectures about traditional artworks by Northwest Masters. The experience revealed all kinds of questions about the assumptions we make about works we think we know and should always revere.In this interview, we visit with Kevin McCoy during the launch of his first company, an online platform for the buying and selling of digital artwork. Monegraph, as this company is called, could change everything about how we value artwork and how artists get paid for the work they make.Watch video of Northwest Passing

Podcast Episode 18:

A Symbol of Pride: Rainbow Flag Designer Gilbert Baker In 1978, Gilbert Baker, a drag queen and community activist in San Francisco, responded to his friend Harvey Milk's assertion that the gay rights movement needed a new symbol. The pink triangle had been in use but was connected to the atrocities of the Holocaust, and the movement needed something uplifting to replace it. Using his creativity, his sewing skills, many many volunteers and even more fabric dye, Baker designed and produced the Rainbow Flag- or Gay Pride Flag- that we know today. Baker with the Rainbow Flag at the Museum of Modern Art, 2015 The Original 8-color Rainbow Flag, San Francisco United Nations Plaza, June 25, 1978. Photo: James McNamara. Courtesy of the artist. Baker is third from the left "in satin pajamas with my long hair." In this interview, he chats with TPR Founder Jess Van Nostrand about the flag's first showing in 1978 and many of the interesting things that have happened since.

Podcast Episode 17

Was Here: Visual Artist Ellie Dicola This month's podcast is a conversation with Seattle-based artist Ellie Dicola. As part of Seattle Storefronts, a program that places artist projects in vacant storefront spaces, Ellie created the installation Was Here. As a corporeal monument to places that are gone, Was Here is a documentation of local businesses and organizations that have disappeared over the last handful of years. Ellie refers to her project as a map of experiences, and in our discussion of evolution and change, we explore what it means to give voice to memory and to create a place to collectively mourn the intangible. Thanks for listening!Ellie Dicola has lived and worked in Seattle since graduating with an MFA from the San Francisco Art Institute in 2005. Her background in sculpture has developed into a creative practice focused in video, performativity, experimental poetics and net-based platforms. She employs devices, often highly autobiographic, that speak to the overtly female. Working from the forces of love, hate, desire, death, madness and belief, a process of self-identification is at the core of her work. She approaches embodiment as a site--inevitably gendered and politicized--where agency and refusal posit further questions. Ellie has an interest in alternative exhibition formats, having most recently presented a guerrilla project on pornhub.com through the avatar HipsLipsTitsPower. Her work has been shown at On The Ground Floor (Los Angeles), Present Company (Brooklyn), Seattle University's Hedreen Gallery, the Henry Art Gallery Test Site (Seattle), and on the Amazon campus through Shunpike's Storefronts Program.