Please do some research on social practice, and write about one project you like. In your description, please make sure the following items are included:
- name of the project
- name of the artist(s)/ collective
- date and location
- the form of the project
- the social issue addressed by this project
- how the social issue is address
- how was the project created; what did the artist(s) do; who else were involved
- how did other people respond to this project
- your opinion on this project: what worked well, and what could be done better
Please also include a few images in your post. If videos are available online, include the links.
Social Practice x Media Art 
name of the project
Oda Projesi ( The room project)
name of the artist(s)/ collective
Ozge Acikkol
Gunes Savas
Secil Yersel
date and location
Istanbul 2000
the form of the project
the social issue addressed by this project
using and producing space
how the social issue is address
by either creating “the collective game” or trying to find it in the already existent daily life
how was the project created; what did the artist(s) do; who else were involved
The project members had met in 1997 and decided to rent and share an apartment as a private studio in Galata. At first, it was an apartment which was shared as a public space. After the project was evicted from the apartment, different mediums and spaces were used like a local radio station, a book and newspapers.Although not intendedly, the apartment they rented in Galata started to be evolved into a multi-purpose, and public space, with a shift in the usual role of the audience in the contemporary art scene.
how did other people respond to this project
This 45 square-meters space in Galata functioned as a non-profit space with zero budget, hosting nearly 30 projects, up until 2005, when Oda Projesi was evicted from the apartment due to the process of gentrification increasingly penetrating the neighborhood. Since then Oda Projesi has a mobile status and continues to raise questions by using different mediums and different spaces like a local radio station, a book, postcards, newspapers or giving form to different meeting points.
your opinion on this project: what worked well, and what could be done better
Oda Projesi provides a way that contains different ways to let people to sit together or do something together in a given place. It can help people of same interests to get together to enjoy something related to their interests like music and no strict rules so that they it may make the participators comfortable and more willing to exchange their ideas. Moreover, because the majority of participators are neighbors, it is also offer a way to help them focus on their community issues. The project also help people to care about each other and make people became performer not just visitors of activities which I think is the key point that make people willing to devote themselves into a community.. However, although the project didn’t mention, I think such a public place can also be used by some extremists to spread thoughts. So I think it would be better if there are some artists who can monitor the activities.
Please also include a few images in your post. If videos are available online, include the links
http://odaprojesi.blogspot.hk/
Name of the project: Localismos
Name of the artist(s)/ collective: Perros Negros (“Black Dogs”)
Date and location: 2004, Mexico City’s historic center
Form of the project: Mask-making workshop, taco-making contest, publication, exhibition, concerts, lectures
Social issue addressed by this project: Globalization not as an isolated phenomenon, but as a union of localities
How the social issue is address: contemporary artists introduce themselves into this place as a globalization, and to create art that are accessible to its inhabitants. And for the local, artists try to let local involved without feeling intimidated by a language they don’t know
How was the project created: it invites the public as its participants and use the materials of the public plaza
Your opinion on this project:
Somehow this project is attracting me because I am also growing up from a community facing globalization. My neighbourhood changes a lot as time goes by. But what inspires me is the way the project tries to document the moment of 2004, when the mixture of global and local exists. But no one did in my community. The good part of this project is to allow local to engage in art-creating progress in a non-intrusive way. It is sort of introducing another way for local to express, giving the discursive power to voice out. The scale of this project is also very large, which infiltrates to every little part of the Mexico City’s historic center. One of the limitations I can think of is the frame of this art project. Due to its large scale and different varieties of art form, it is difficult to be presented as a whole. As we may see, form of this project varies from workshop to concerts, though it did give much organic interactions within the historic center.
Before I Die
http://beforeidie.cc
TED
“Before I Die” is an interactive art project that invites people to reflect on their lives and share their personal aspirations in public space. This project originated by Candy Chang, who is an artist, designer, and urban planner. She started this project on an abandoned house in her neighborhood in New Orleans after she lost someone she loved very much. She transformed that house into an interactive wall by painted the side of that house with chalkboard paint and stenciled it with a fill-in-the-blank sentence “Before I die I want to ___.” Anyone walking by could pick up a piece of chalk, reflect on their lives, and share their personal voices. Surprisingly, the wall was entirely filled out by the next day. Her neighbors’ answers were sometimes surprising, sometimes poignant, sometimes funny, and the wall became an unexpected mirror for the community. So this neglected space became a constructive one, as Candy said, It’s about knowing we are not alone, It’s about understanding our neighbors in new and enlightening ways, It’s about making space for reflection and contemplation, and remembering what really matters most to us as we grow and change. And after this, she received hundreds of messages from passionate people who wanted to make a wall with their community, and now, over 300 walls have now been created in over 20 languages and in over 50 countries around the world, including Kazakhstan, South Africa, China, Australia, Germany, Argentina, etc. In this case, Candy uses a kind of creative form of public space for people to express and contemplate death freely and initiatively, and remind them of the things that make lives meaningful, the people involved may or may not know each other even though they live in the same neighborhood, but they can help each other to make better places and lead better lives when they share their hopes and stories.
I think the idea of a wall with many “Before I die I want to ___.” is very simple but innovative. With just a few words, it can trigger people’s desire to write down their deepest thoughts or desires, no matter how weird or hilarious their wishes maybe. There are two points impressed me in this project. One is that everyone reacts to losing a loved one in different ways, but for some, it can ignite a fire. For Candy, she decide to use her loss to create, which needs a great courage. I know the feeling of losing a loved one, because I have been there, and that helped me clarity my life. The other is due to the fast pace of society, people are busy and really agree with the point that in the fast-changing society, people are busy and indifferent to each other even next door neighbor. We always merely think of our work but forget the real meaning in our lives and do not care about people’s relationships. But this can not be saved for a long time, maybe we can record it the vedio or other version at the same time.
Lights in City
Alfredo Jaar
Montreal, 1999
http://blog.vandalog.com/2010/11/parallels-alfredo-jaars-lights-in-the-city-part-1/
http://www.alfredojaar.net/index1.html
Alfredo Jaar has created numerous socially engaged projects, some more recently than this piece, but I think this piece is particularly elegant and effective both as an artwork and a social action. Jaar installed numerous red lights in the Cupola of the Marché Bonsecours, “a landmark monument in Montreal,” giving the effect of the entire dome of the building glowing red.
In nearby homeless shelters, Jaar installed a red button. People entering the shelters had the option of pushing the button and triggering the red glow effect in the monumental building. In this way, they were showing their presence to the city. The red glow may remind onlookers of danger, or a warning. It reminds citizens that when their fellow citizens have nowhere to sleep, this is a kind of crisis.
I find the piece succesful because it gives the homeless participants the power to make themselves visible. One of the complaints I have heard from many street sleepers is that they feel invisible to the eyes of passerby. I also imagine the effect of a single building glowing silently red to be very poetic, a silent signal that many people in the city might not even understand. It is not didactic, it does not clearly say, “this is happening and it is wrong”. Those who want to know more about the glowing light are forced to look up the project, and to come across the information about the homeless population of their own volition.
I showed another project that I really love in Maurice’s class, so I didn’t want to duplicate. But for those of you who don’t know it, Michael Rakowitz’s Parasite
http://michaelrakowitz.com/projects/parasite/
is a really strong piece in which the artist created custom homeless shelters out of garbage bags, which inflated due to the heat ventiliation coming off large apartment buildings. Clever, visible, subversive and useful.
Kat
(ignore my username its for my dad’s blog)
Museum of Modern Failure:
http://www.pghcitypaper.com/pittsburgh/failure-is-an-option/Content?oid=1339301
The project was initiated by Jon Rubin, who is an assistant professor in Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh Pennsylvania. The project is the core of a class “Art in Context”, which students have to make use of a space in a specific neighborhood and do something in order to get the local community and neighborhood engaged. By the time, it was taken place in a neighborhood, where most of the shops and business couldn’t keep up with diverse reasons, and it inspires Rubin and his students to make up a cafe called Museum of Modern Failure. They sell coffee for 6 cents (tips is not included, but it is miserably little I reckon), cream costs extra; all equipment isdonated or found in second hand store, the “business” is run at their own cost, students sell their art, organize concerts and events at night in order to break even (That’s why they call it BREAK EVEN CAFE). The project came to an end in December, the short life of the project reflects the reality in terms of economic efficiency. The artists may not focus on one specific social issue in this case, the community involved may / may not notice what is going on, in certain extent they get benefit from cheap food and coffee, the project itself become a metaphor, to arouse their cultural awareness of small business comparing to chain-store corporates.
This project impresses me that we always do art to certain goals or achievement, you draw a painting in the sake of aesthetics, but I have never thought of manipulating failure as a tool to deliver message, especially in relational art form. The way that Rubin leaves the project open could be a better strategy to get people involved, community do not see a Cafe as art, and it really serves them in daily life practically. But ever since I participated in community art project, couple questions always bother me, and I think I have to resolve the frustration before doing it:
Should I use “Art” as a two-edge sword to intervene other people’s life?
What is my goal in the project?
What is the purpose of “Art” in terms of interest of targeted community?