Boatel NYC | Swoon @Konbit Shelter Project & Transformazium | CP Cavafy
/Les Artistes
Reclaiming, Deconstructing, Creating Waterspaces
Check In, Swim Out: A Floating Hotel as Art NYTimes
New York’s newest getaway is Boggsville Boatel and Boat-In Theater, a configuration of four refurbished pleasure boats and a houseboat, all moored around a jury-rigged floating platform.
Artist Constance Hockaday says she hopes to attract the romantic and adventurous to her floating hotel, one she describes as a post-apocalyptic adventure.
Under the auspices of Flux Factory, a Queens gallery, Boatel will be open Thursday through Saturday this summer. July is almost sold out.
“When you think about it, the water is the last remaining open public space,” said Jean Barberis, the artistic director of Flux Factory. “As artists and creative people venture more and more into the outer boroughs, there’s less and less unclaimed territory on land. But the water is still completely open.” Mr. Barberis said he sees the Boatel as part of a recent movement of artists exploring New York’s waterways, like Duke Riley, who staged a naval battle in a reflecting pool in Flushing Meadows-Corona Park, and Swoon, the street artist behind the wide-ranging flotilla of paddle- and steam-powered junk rafts known as Swimming Cities.
Swoon in Haiti & Braddock, Pa
Swoon and Her Band of ‘New York City Garbage Anarchists’ Drifts into Venice on the Adriatic AOC Green
The last time AOC checked on Swoon, she was headed for the 2008 Venice Bienniele. No longer a centerpiece of Swimming Cities, the project continues in India this summer.
Today the activist artist is working on her Konbit Shelter Project, created with the idea that a group of artists, engineers, architects, and builders could pool their individual knowledge, resources, and time to make a lasting difference in post-earthquake Haiti.
Under Deconstruction: Transformazium Pop City
Swoon is also involved with Transformazium, a residence project near Pittsburgh dedicated to transforming the damaged United Bretheren Church of North Braddock into an artistic space and community center.
The project is part of a rapidly growing movement called deconstruction.
Deconstruction is the selective dismantling of a building for the purpose of reusing the materials to build new structures, and it is this process which Ruthie Stringer, along with formerly Brooklyn based artists Leslie Stern, Dana Bishop-Root, and Caledonia Curry (better known as Swoon), are using to turn their building into a community arts center called the Transformazium.
In the Greater Pittsburgh area, over 30% of real estate is vacant or underutilized. Swoon and other artists are working on the revitalization of America.
Sea Worthy: Exhibition, Workshops & Excursions Flux Factory in NYC
The EFA Project Space, Flux Factory and The Gowanus Studio Space present Sea Worthy, a summer 2011 exhibition and series of public screenings, performances, lectures, workshops and artist-led excursions on the water.
New York City is a formidable archipelago, hosting 72 islands and over 700 miles of coastline.. This project invites discussion about water access, activates the largest open space in the city, and engages maritime themes in contemporary art practice. Sea Worthy brings together artists from here and abroad – in consultation with boat builders, world-class mariners, historians, writers, activists, and ecologists – to make new work about, around, and on the waterways of New York City in the summer of 2011.
The expanse of sea excursions is both daunting and uncontrollable and full of dream potential. To explore this terrain, the artists involved with Sea Worthy take to the high and low seas, metaphorically, virtually, and in reality.
Chateau Renovation in The Alps
Messner Mountain Museum by EM2 Dezeen
Located in the Alps, the Messner Mountain Museum houses a permanent exhibition about people who live in mountainous regions around the world.
As the centrepiece of the Messner Mountain Museum, MMM Firmian in Sigmundskron Castle near Bozen addresses the subject of man’s encounter with the mountains. In a setting dominated by the various peaks between the Schlern and the Texel range, the museum is spacious enough to be organised as an itinerary between the various works of art, installations and relics that it houses. The paths, stairs and towers lead visitors form the depths of the mountain, where their origins and exploitation are brought to life, and the religious significance of the peaks as an aid to orientation and a bridge to the beyond, to the history of mountaineering and the alpine tourist industry that we know today. Annual exhibitions are also held.
Sailing Towards Ithaca | Paul Coelho | CP Cavafy (aka Kavafis) AOC Style
Anne’s own reflections on a profound night in her life, rocking in a small boat in the Ionian Sea were derailed by an unintended digital encounter with the artist/writer Paul Coelho.
This essay and the accompanying videos remains one of her most favorite inspiration essays about the meaning of life and also possibility.
Writing about the dreadful lack of creativity among American school children — a strategic Achilles heel say business executives — Anne was shocked to read that the parents of Paul Coelho were so distressed over his determination to become a writer that they institutionalized him, subjecting him to electrical shock therapy in an effort to get rid of his crazy, creative desires.
To be continued . .
