Okay, so you probably know that I have been working on the Seeding the City project for over two years now. And this past September the project launched! YAY! It was a long time in the planning stages.

So the point of the project was to find a handful of people who were interested in installing small green roof modules (little trays of green roof that were less than 2′x4′). These people were then to reach out to their friends/neighbors to interest them in putting modules on their roofs too. The goals were to create a network of people in a region who were all interested in urban environmental issues and spark a wave of green roof building – more on all that here.

So it started slowly with a few people interested – I kind of thought there would be loads of people who wanted a free green roof! Then I started to get interest from institutions, and although this wasn’t the intended audience, it seemed like a good idea anyway. So when we went to install the first modules the comments were along the lines of “that’s it?” “that’s so easy!” — and I realized (after my great experience with the planting program with Covenant House) that there was some other potential here. So I brought up the idea of doing a planting program with the residents of this particular institution. If they cover the costs (at just over $1,000) we could do run a half day workshop and by the end of that they would have a larger green roof – about 2,000 square feet worth!

I have since planted at a pre-school, an environmental organization and another school, all of whom are interested in doing planting workshops in the spring! So that is 4 more green roofs than NYC had before I started the project.

So, while I may not (yet) be getting the broad reach that I had hoped for, I am getting to install some larger scale green roofs with some great people. And the green roof education reaches a broad base of people who will one day build their own networks…

I was recently invited to speak about my work as part of a Pratt colloquium whose theme is the urban landscape. I asked the organizer if perhaps I could design an interactive project for the students to participate in and then spend the time discussing that project instead of me coming in to lecture (yes I am a big believer in experiential learning).

The project idea that I came up with was based on the experience of past projects and some upcoming projects. In order to create a closer connection or deeper understanding of their landscape, I asked the students to come up with a data set that could be mapped, but that was unseen. (Much like the 10′ above sea level line or historical topographies).

Historical Topography for Paths of Desire

The students presented their projects: mapping the paths of campus cats, overlaying a star chart on a nearby park & mapping the constellations, the path of a sail boat from point A to point B and how it is altered by the weather, mapping access points to graffiti a spot, documenting ritualistic paths (daily chores, special trips), mapping crime sites and documenting those, using the body as landscape/map, using historic/personal maps/events to explore, paths implied by remnants, spaces with arbitrarily assigned meaning.

All these projects enabled us to discuss a great range of experiences and issues:
-the concept of boundaries, how are real and perceived boundaries manifest, and how does that affect one’s experience or interpretation.
-emotional attachment/detachment to place
-relationship of the body to experiences
-changing landscapes (in weather, time, seasons)
-communities that one discovers through a deeper inspection of place, how those communities exist & interact within the space
-the psychology of landscape: how does it alter your perception, awareness, emotions and responses
-the constantly changing landscape of an urban environment

It was great to see the projects (thank you all!) And to have the time to delve into this discussion.

It also makes me want to start a website to collect these wanderings and the experiences that people might share.

For more information on work like this, start first at the Conflux Festival – the great gathering of psychogeography, then check out these projects:

• Cherry Blossoms by Alyssa Wright
• Green Line by Francis Alys
• Kalch by Julia Mandle
• HighWaterLine
• Paths of Desire

untitled pratt cat, originally uploaded by kara canal.

The other morning I tweeted about having some ideas on designing curriculum around social interventionist art. A few things got me thinking about this, 1) conversations i have had with similar artists about the somewhat unique set of skills needed to create s.i.a, 2) a friend who just got a job designing new curriculum on educational studies for a uni here in nyc (she’s brilliant, it will be amazing) 3) my own interest in teaching/sharing.*

I have some ideas about what kind of coursework could be offered.

Core (required) curriculum:

• Specific art history covering russian constructivists, dadaism, fluxus, happenings, street & guerilla art, artists like beuys, hamish fulton, richard long. Including contemporary artists. Would also cover history of propaganda, political actions and visual communications (design & marketing). This may need to be two semesters
• Studio practice, which might be the course I currently want to teach. Getting students out into communities to put their learnings into practice, surveying, researching, designing, creating. This maybe would be 2nd year, first year might be more conceptual practices.
• Tools of research. This would cover surveying & questioning methods, including how to structure questions. Learning how to use various tools to research data, understanding how to read and interpret data. And finally, statistical analysis, determining metrics and measuring impact.
• Communications. This is definitely a two semester (or more) course. Includes verbal communications: pitching your project, networking, public speaking, media training, speaking with the public, argumentative training & persuasive skills. There would also be training on how to communicate through the written form (effective email communications, writing press releases, using technology to document & promote your work) and visually (communicating ideas through drawing and computer generated imagery)
• Effective proposal writing, including researching grants, writing different types of applications, grant reporting and metrics.
• Fundraising – how to write contracts and mou’s, researching and approaching corporate sponsors, fiscal sponsorship, writing appeal letters, managing donations, online fundraising, hosting fundraising events, and getting in-kind donations.

Some of the elective courses could be:

• Contemporary social issues: environment, food politics, social justice, women’s issues, international issues
• Urban planning & design: overview of basics, with emphasis on infrastructure, public spaces, transportation (this could be 2 semesters too)
• History of public art: survey of more traditional methods and models, also would include murals
• Computer 3d modeling: i don’t think this needs explanation right?
• History of social movements
• Survey courses on specific topics: history of nyc (or city in which the course is taught), histories of specific social movements (offering more in depth information than course above)

This was the rough draft (written on my phone). Anyone want to support a larger development of the curriculum? Anyone have any thoughts or am I missing something?

*My interest in teaching/sharing is this: I truly believe in sharing knowledge as a means to elevate anyone and everyone. However I don’t have any desire for teaching to be my life. I’m thinking one course is enough.

and yes, this is something that i do in my “free time” – i think about things and i write them down. that’s why i want to start my own well funded think tank

images (top to bottom):
Brian D. Collier: Habitat Acquisition
New York Times Special Edition

Okay, so I’m not really much like the MoMA, or even like a NaNO-MoMA (but I do like InterCaPs). When I was in grad school, I read somewhere about the enormous number of artworks that the MoMA owns that literally never get put on display. (Insert here myths about a vast underground labyrinth of treasures). When I learned that, I decided I didn’t want to create work that would just live in storage in perpetuity, so I created more ephemeral works. Mostly.

Fast forward -ahem- a *few* years and lo and behold, here I am with a storage space filled with art and art remnants. And it bothers me. So my goal over the next couple of months is to get all that work out of storage.

Of course there’s no point in throwing it all away, I am sure some of you out in the world have some space in your home that needs some art.

Here’s the deal, I am starting a Fine Art Foster program (the Fine Art Adoption Network is a great model).

Here’s how it will work:

• you let me know what art you are interested in fostering (see list below or website)
• we work out transportation and installment if necessary
• you sign an agreement which basically states that you are going to take care of the work (barring any acts of nature) and that should the piece ever be needed for show (that big retrospective!), sold or wanted returned by/to the artist, it will be made available and in condition, and that you will always keep the work on view, if you can no longer have it on view you will return it to the artist.
• if the work is sold, you will receive 10% of the sales price (30% if the sale is made through you)
• if you should decide to purchase the piece yourself, you can do so after 2 years for 35% off the price.
• should the work not be sold, within 35 years, you become the owner
• all these terms are negotiable

So, anyone want some art?!

Here’s what is currently available:

• I See You in Me – would make interesting decorative addition inside or out
• HighWaterLine beacons – fabulous blue lit beacons, again good for inside (w/batteries) or out (needs solar upgrade)
• Myth (might require some fixing prior to installation)
• Figment
• Entice – all or in parts
• (Not) Seen
• Matter of Time – compact & bijoux
• Dissemination
• Depths
• Re/Cognition – this is pretty big, and the lighting is tricky, but it might be right for you!
• Drought – the partitioning of this project is up for discussion. I think I would a require a minimum of 500 pcs/person. Would look awesome in a glass topped coffee table or large plexi wall box.
• Ambition
• Regneration
• Seeds
• Estranged – you can foster any one set or all three sets
• Collective Unconscious
• Travels Abroad – beautiful (imho) but fragile
• Ashes
• I Take It With Me
• New Life – unfinished sculpture, I will supply images if you are interested. it is a large hanging knit piece made of unbleached wool
• Drawings – almost all of these are available.

Wow, that’s more than I thought it was! Well, if you are interested, contact me!

Pictured (from top to bottom): drought, travels abroad, eccentricites and 11.02

So you’ve heard me call for it before (and mentioned here and here) – a union of artists. To ensure fair pay and fair practices. So that we quit underselling ourselves. So that institutions realize the full value of the work that an artist puts into creating the finished piece (whatever form that might take).

Evan Roth recently posted his thoughts on attending sxsw as an unpaid participant, someone else (i can’t remember) reposted it and commented on it as well. It’s the same discussion I have with artists time after time, everyone else is getting paid, why not the artists? (Although some curator friends of mine often do work for free as well – which is equally as crazy). If everyone from the prepator, to the pr person, to the admin, to the cleaning crew, to the printing press is getting paid for the work they do to make a show happen – why aren’t the artists getting paid?

Rally at Chicago NLRB – 4, originally uploaded by carlosjwj.

I even believe that if someone wants to include your work in a show without the intention of selling it (even if it is documentation of a work – i.e. a dvd or photos), you, as the artist should be paid. It still cost you money (probably a lot of it) to produce the work, document the work etc. Why should private donors & funders help pay for work and then institutions get to build their business off showcasing that work.

So maybe it is time for an artist union. There are some other really interesting people thinking about it too. The hurdle is getting widespread acceptance, and I think to do that we have to get institutional support as well (a promise from galleries or museums to only represent members of the union).

I was looking at the history of the Screen Actor’s Guild for inspiration (it seems a similar trajectory) and indeed, the big turn happened when producer’s supported the actors.

So, what are your thoughts?

last night, i was working on my presentation for the talk that I am getting ready to give at the Graduate School of Design at Harvard. The talk is using HighWaterLine as a jumping off point for discussing the role that artists and designers can play in the larger scheme of environmental policy and planning. During my preparations, I posted the following on Twitter and Facebook: “Eve is once again thinking about the role that artists can play in social change – what do we bring to the table and how is that unique?”

I got some fascinating responses which I would like to share:

Abigail Ramos at 10:19pm March 9
artists are our most valuable historians… they document the times from the perspective of the people and in a much more meaningful way than words ever could. ok, i think i’m way off from your question though. i dunno. ;p

Jeremiah Moore at 11:23pm March 9 via Facebook Mobile
among other things, artists are digesting and remixing symbols… & bringing new structures… these create new cultural and personal pathways, paving the way for social change.

Lizzie Scott at 11:55am March 10
Artists (sometimes) expand what we consider to be possible, and (one hopes) allow us to expand our thinking in general. Without revolutions in our ideas, we get totally stuck with “that’s just the way things are.”

Marc Mitzner at 3:12pm March 10
Artists challenge the “norm” – what is socially acceptable & what isn’t – as well as point out the folly in what IS the norm.

Anyway, just a reason to love it…

Floating Trash Island by Rhizome Collective

I am currently working on a proposal for a project which invites communities to build floating islands and moor them off coastal city parks. The project was inspired in part by Smithson’s Floating Island and in part by the need/desire to create a water remediation project for the city – we are after all 3 islands and a peninsula.

I have a couple of other projects this year that are on the more purely conceptual side of my practice – documenting invisible maps and tracing paths of desire based on history and contemporary infrastructure. Both of these seek to create a connection to our landscape in a new way that encourages further observation and understanding. Neither of these is “issue based” or “environmental” except maybe tangentally. This is fine with me, as I am coming to understand, I am most interested in landscape, and if it intersects with environmental or social issues all the better.

The floating island project though strikes me as a different animal, it is way less conceptual and completely based on being a remediation project. It is something that an environmental organization could just as easily be organizing as me. (Actually maybe easier since they have institutional support).

So, because I, as an artist, am creating the project, is it art? Does it matter?

ps thanks to rhizome collective for the floating trash island instructions and their great book Toolbox for Sustainable City Living!

I had a really interesting conversation with a professor from Pratt’s Visual Criticism studies program. We were discussing my participation in this semester’s colloquium, which would focus on Landscape*.

He felt I would be a good participant because my work so often was focused on making the invisible visible in landscapes (I am paraphrasing greatly). It really got me to thinking about how I define my work. He struck a very true chord with me.

I have always felt uncomfortable with pigeon holing myself into the world of eco or environmental artist. Even though much of my work does explore these themes, it primarily is encouraging audiences to re-think their existing environment or landscape. This is true of historical work and definitely true of current and proposed projects. A number of which don’t fit neatly in the environmental pigeon hole. Some of these include:

• The “48 Hours of Sao Paolo” project, which seeks to black out the advertising in Times Square for 48 hours in an effort to see what else is there.
• A project I am hosting with the MoMA teen nights, which will introduce the students to visionary architecture and art projects (including Dickson Despommier’s Vertical Farms, The Lilypad Cities, Steve Lambert’s “Wish you Were Here, Postcards from Our Awesome Future,” and the Ansan City proposals), and ask the students to re-envision their “Dream NYC.” This is part of the digital project I would like to do in which I recreate the entire island of Manhattan (or a large portion thereof) as MyNyc, my own dream version of NYC – complete with monorails!
• Paths of Desire, which will trace movements of project participants as they explore historic Lower Manhattan within the confines of contemporary Lower Manhattan. (Proposal images coming soon).
• The project I am doing with the colloquium students. I am asking them to map a non-obvious route and document it in someway (graphics, photos, stories). This idea is on both Paths of Desire and HighWaterLine (which traced a topographic line). I am also planning to do my own set of invisible maps and post them online to share with the students.

Two Bikes, originally uploaded by holly_northrop.

So… I just think he really has a point about my work. I certainly hope that the projects will continue to inspire critical and creative thinking around environmental & ecological issues, while at the same time connecting people to their landscapes.

I guess a new statement is in the works… Any thoughts?

*I like the word landscape because it includes not only visible features but also the weather, climate and human features & the flora and fauna.

I basically spent today talking. Which makes me wonder why I would want to continue to do so, although this is in the written form. I wanted to continue because I am pretty excited about what I was doing today and wanted to note some things down before I forget about them…

First, I spent the morning doing a talk on how to take your project to fruition when working in the public realm. It was part of the NYFA Fall Business of Art Conference called Taking it to the Streets: A Guide to Making Art in the Public, my talk was called DIY How I Made My Public Project Happen. Basically I walked people through a whole slew of things to think about when creating a public art project (especially if you don’t have a producer or presenting organization. Here is the short version of the slideshow…

Most of the topics I will go into more detail on the blog: http://www.diypublicart.org. I will also post the full version with narration on that site…

So what got me buzzed about that – well, I have to admit that I LOVE public speaking. I really do! I just get a buzz from it. I love talking about my work, or leading a discussion or whatever. I just really enjoy it. Someone asked me at the talk if I was an energetic public speaker prior to my project, and I don’t think I really had a chance to find out. But I certainly enjoy it now. So, if you want someone to come talk, lead a workshop whatever – let me know.

Image via Wikipedia

This afternoon I had the pleasure of sitting on a panel at the Pratt Institute ReIgnite Conference. The panel was on greening your practice and featured, Samuel Cochran, Ruth Shuman, Mark Smith & Myself. Each of the panelists brought really interesting work to the fore.

Sam (SMIT) has created beautiful modular solar & wind energy generating systems called “grow” and “ivy” his work was featured in the MoMA “Design & the Elastic Mind” show his project is an elegant solution and has great potential to transform the ways in which renewable energy is used in building design.

Ruth founded the program Publicolor which transforms drab public schools, community centers and even police precincts through the power of colorful painted spaces. She spoke about the fabulous power of color to transform our mindset within these spaces. The brightly colored schools actually had a measurable change in dropout & college-bound rates. It’s a beautifully simple and incredibly powerful project idea.

Mark is an industrial designer who took his expertise quite a lot further – he realised that design has the power to change lives. And not just through the design itself, but that the entire process of creating a new product had the power to impact. He relocated back to Alabama where he grew up and started DesignSeed (website on way). This enterprise incubator launches a new manufacturing company in a different region of the blackbelt (an extremely poor post-agriculture region of Alabama) every two years. DesignSeed identifies resources in a region (materials & people) and does in depth research on a community to determine what needs there are. The design phase involves coming up with a design that fits all of the requirements set forth in the research. There is a lot more to it, but that is some of the gist of it.

Someone in the audience asked the panel, given our community & environmental focus, if we had a chance to go back and change our education at Pratt, what would we do differently.

My response was that I wish there had been more involvement with communities in general and in the local neighborhood in particular. I would like to have studied working on art within a community.

And then I thought, well if I want that, maybe I should be the one to teach that.

And then I thought, wouldn’t it be great to teach art using Mark’s business model. A class would select a neighborhood, go and do research on issues which they deal with – social, environmental or other – research on their knowledge and interest and ideas for confronting these issues. Then the class would charette and come up with designs for art projects to occur in the community and then go through the process of developing & producing that project (permits, community board meetings, all of that stuff) and then create the project. It would be a semester or year long project commitment and would really get people involved in the process and the community. I think it would be a pretty amazing class.

So if you want to hire me to teach that class, I am open to that to.

I have a question for you-

Do you love what you are doing?

I mean really really enjoy (practically) every minute of it? Do you, at the end of each day think, I did good, and I love what I did today?

If you don’t why not? Or more importantly, why are you not doing what you love?

I have had a couple of conversations with people who are anxiously attempting to create something that sells, or something that they perceive as marketable. And I have to wonder if they will A) ever find success with that and B) ever be happy doing it?

Don’t you think – particularly in art making – the passion comes across and makes the work stronger?

And maybe passion/love isn’t always the right term. I think for many the word may be “fun” or “interesting.” Even with that, at the end of the day, you might say “that was cool – i really had fun today and I made some great work!”

If you aren’t getting a buzz from your own work, how will anyone else? If your work doesn’t excite you in some way, maybe you should think about finding what does.

I tell you all this because too many people spend their time searching for the right product for their perceived audience. Why not create a product (work) that you love and find an audience for that. I think that is a lot more interesting and, in fact, easier! (There is a lot less guess work in the second option).

I have a friend who talks about the power of working to your mission (your passion) as opposed to towards “the sale.” When you work towards your mission, everything else (money, recognition, etc) will follow.

So think about it, Do you love what you are doing?