Another look at Metabolism and Cities
(from DPR-Barcalona--who will soon publish Un Atlas de Cartografias Radicales!!!)
BUILD MORE BOATS
10 years ago
Tuesday, June 8, 2010
Wednesday, April 7, 2010
Thursday, April 1, 2010
Update from Kielbasy
Kielbasy Update April 1, 2010
Things have been exciting. This morning I woke up and went to photograph the owner of a Mexican bakery in downtown Wilkes-Barre. We discussed how he arrived in PA via Nueva York. He is a hard worker with an air of superiority about his success, a trait I think is very American. That's what I am thinking about here: What it means to be an American. At my lowest moments today, I thought that we are competitive and lacking in compassion.
Today we visited Carbondale, a small town where Julie's grandmother grew up. We spoke to a man who blamed the downfall of his neighborhood (and every other one) on "colored people". We also discussed joblessness, hopelessness, drugs and machines taking the jobs of humans.
As I sit here on the porch, I listen to the African American neighbors discuss politics; Obama, Hillary, Palin and I yell over the fence to them in agreement about something. They answer back and we greet each other. I feel the divide between us. The lack of trust. I keep seeing this here. In downtown Wilkes-Barre, I notice how people do not make eye contact. I know this can be overcome.
It is the first warm night. Tomorrow is Good Friday. The night is clear and full of laughter, motorbikes and barking dogs.
How come we don’t look at systems? How come we always look to blame people? I guess that is easier. Our default. How we all got to where we are, on the backs of everyone else. That is the story I am seeing here in Northeaster Pennsylvania. A city of immigrants: Eastern European and now Latino, third and fourth generation Poles, Russians, Lithuanians and African-Americans. There is a church for every ethnicity. No one really seems to get anyone else’s deal, but everyone has a deal. (As Choygam Trungpa says). I am fascinated by everyone’s deal. I want to get all the deals in a room together.
When I photograph people, I find them difficult, I have trouble with the things they say, the way they shape things, but I want to be open. I want to document this experience of being American. This obsession with race and the entrapment of class. I want to create more understanding and my anger (or guilt) has no place in that process.
A dinner we discuss the history of industry here, the patterns of migration, the path of profit.
The mornings are lush with bird song. This evening I saw the sun set over the Lackawanna River. I am going to bed without any resolution about how I can fit my work into these complexities I seem to seek out.
Goodnight.
Mea
Things have been exciting. This morning I woke up and went to photograph the owner of a Mexican bakery in downtown Wilkes-Barre. We discussed how he arrived in PA via Nueva York. He is a hard worker with an air of superiority about his success, a trait I think is very American. That's what I am thinking about here: What it means to be an American. At my lowest moments today, I thought that we are competitive and lacking in compassion.
Today we visited Carbondale, a small town where Julie's grandmother grew up. We spoke to a man who blamed the downfall of his neighborhood (and every other one) on "colored people". We also discussed joblessness, hopelessness, drugs and machines taking the jobs of humans.
As I sit here on the porch, I listen to the African American neighbors discuss politics; Obama, Hillary, Palin and I yell over the fence to them in agreement about something. They answer back and we greet each other. I feel the divide between us. The lack of trust. I keep seeing this here. In downtown Wilkes-Barre, I notice how people do not make eye contact. I know this can be overcome.
It is the first warm night. Tomorrow is Good Friday. The night is clear and full of laughter, motorbikes and barking dogs.
How come we don’t look at systems? How come we always look to blame people? I guess that is easier. Our default. How we all got to where we are, on the backs of everyone else. That is the story I am seeing here in Northeaster Pennsylvania. A city of immigrants: Eastern European and now Latino, third and fourth generation Poles, Russians, Lithuanians and African-Americans. There is a church for every ethnicity. No one really seems to get anyone else’s deal, but everyone has a deal. (As Choygam Trungpa says). I am fascinated by everyone’s deal. I want to get all the deals in a room together.
When I photograph people, I find them difficult, I have trouble with the things they say, the way they shape things, but I want to be open. I want to document this experience of being American. This obsession with race and the entrapment of class. I want to create more understanding and my anger (or guilt) has no place in that process.
A dinner we discuss the history of industry here, the patterns of migration, the path of profit.
The mornings are lush with bird song. This evening I saw the sun set over the Lackawanna River. I am going to bed without any resolution about how I can fit my work into these complexities I seem to seek out.
Goodnight.
Mea
Sunday, March 28, 2010
Wednesday, March 3, 2010
Next Kielbasy Residency - March 27 - April 4
The Third Kielbasy Residency will take place from March 27 - April 4, 2010.
Meredith Arena and Julie Sengle will be in residence.
There will be no Open Studio for this residency, because of Easter celebrations.
Julie Sengle is an artist and organizer based in Brooklyn, New York. Her work explores slippages in historical memory, the power of ritual, and the shaping of tradition. She received her Master’s degree in 2004 from New York University, where she investigated modes of human interaction in American art since World War II. She has organized projects at Free Store, a pop-up shop in Lower Manhattan, and at Kleio Projects gallery in the Lower East Side. Her writing can be found in “Dear Someone,” an anthology edited by Jaime Shearn Cohen, and on her blog of feminist, queer, and performance art julessengle.blogspot.com.
While at Kielbasy, Sengle will retrace her grandmother’s youth in the nearby coal mining cities of Forest City and Carbondale, Pennsylvania. She hopes to document the Lithuanian legacy left by the city’s early inhabitants in Forest City and to unearth the activities of Lithuanian Communists who were once active in the area.
Meredith Arena is an artist, teacher, writer and sometimes performer. She has curated group exhibitions and regularly facilitates art projects with children. She has exhibited work in New York, California and Mexico. She currently works with children and families in Bushwick, Brooklyn and facilitates the monthly writers group at The Interdependence Project.
She will be continuing her portrait series, begun at her previous Kielbasy residency.
(Alexis Bhagat will be busy driving Julie and Meredith around, and otherwise will be holed away figuring out his Tax Return.)
Meredith Arena and Julie Sengle will be in residence.
There will be no Open Studio for this residency, because of Easter celebrations.
Julie Sengle is an artist and organizer based in Brooklyn, New York. Her work explores slippages in historical memory, the power of ritual, and the shaping of tradition. She received her Master’s degree in 2004 from New York University, where she investigated modes of human interaction in American art since World War II. She has organized projects at Free Store, a pop-up shop in Lower Manhattan, and at Kleio Projects gallery in the Lower East Side. Her writing can be found in “Dear Someone,” an anthology edited by Jaime Shearn Cohen, and on her blog of feminist, queer, and performance art julessengle.blogspot.com.
While at Kielbasy, Sengle will retrace her grandmother’s youth in the nearby coal mining cities of Forest City and Carbondale, Pennsylvania. She hopes to document the Lithuanian legacy left by the city’s early inhabitants in Forest City and to unearth the activities of Lithuanian Communists who were once active in the area.
Meredith Arena is an artist, teacher, writer and sometimes performer. She has curated group exhibitions and regularly facilitates art projects with children. She has exhibited work in New York, California and Mexico. She currently works with children and families in Bushwick, Brooklyn and facilitates the monthly writers group at The Interdependence Project.
She will be continuing her portrait series, begun at her previous Kielbasy residency.
(Alexis Bhagat will be busy driving Julie and Meredith around, and otherwise will be holed away figuring out his Tax Return.)
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