WPKN Archives Archive Feed: culture

Live Culture with Martha Willette Lewis Episode 41: Cultural Reckoning

Sat, 28 Jul 2018 11:00:00 GMT

This month features a conversation with the Arts Council of Greater New Haven Director Daniel Fitzmaurice about Create the Vote CT, a nonpartisan public education campaign to raise awareness and support for the arts among voters and candidates running for public office. Daniel is one of the co-founders of this initiative which attempts to bring together CT's many arts organizations to
collectively make their voices heard.

On July 31st the public is invited to attend
Arts, Culture, & the Future of CT’s Economy: Gubernatorial Candidate Forum.
The event goes from 5:00 – 6:30 p.m.at the
Co-Op High School's Mainstage Theater,
177 College Street, New Haven, CT. and is free and open to all.
Please RSVP here.

The Forum will be an opportunity for the creative community to show the candidates that their commitment to the arts, culture, and creativity matters. Each candidate was given a questionnaire with six questions to respond to.

Confirmed attendees are: Joseph Ganim, Oz Griebel, Rod Hanscomb, Tim Herbst, Ned Lamont, Marisa Manley, and David Stemerman. The program will be hosted by WTNH-TV anchor Ann Nyberg, who is also a committed champion of the arts in Connecticut.

This is a gubernatorial election year and thus an excellent moment to discuss the strengths and challenges the state faces and to collectively form a vision for our community. While candidates spend much time talking about jobs, the economy, and education, they rarely talk about arts and culture as part of their campaign. Seeing the need to make arts and creativity part of the discussion, Connecticut Arts Alliance (CAA) and the Connecticut Alliance for Arts Education (CAAE) have launched Create the Vote CT. and instigated Arts, Culture, & the Future of CT’s Economy: Gubernatorial Candidate Forum to get the public involved.

Over 100 arts and culture organizations - including WPKN!- have signed up to be co-sponsors of this inspired event. Daniel knows all too well the challenges that face so many arts organizations throughout the state, as budgets get slashed, and yet it bears repeating that arts and culture are what bring so much revenue and other collective goods to our towns and cities. Join us as we discuss this exciting and timely project and the various candidates, questions and challenges that lie ahead in activating and informing the public before the election.

Are you registered to vote?
it's easy and it's online here at https://voterregistration.ct.gov

Live Culture with Martha Willette Lewis number 34: The Net Neutrality Episode

Sat, 30 Dec 2017 11:00:00 GMT

"Net Neutrality"-- what does this mean and why should you care?

This month I am in discussion with Thomas Kadri, a Ph.D. in Law candidate at Yale University whose his research spans the intersection of media, technology, and the First Amendment.

The FCC has repealed consumer protections that prohibit internet service providers - or ISP's- from discriminating against or favoring websites by blocking or throttling internet traffic. These ISP's will also be allowed to charge fees to websites and online services for faster and more reliable network access. We will discuss the ramifications of this, in particular for artists, non-profits and other small-scale producers of online content.

To sweeten this rather sobering topic for our final show for 2017, I am including some musical selections from my picks for the top 10 albums and songs for the year. Please join us for this live interview in a bustling downtown cafe surrounded by people sipping lattes, talking and playing with their phones, laptops and other devices.We close out this year by looking ahead to the challenges of 2018 for WPKN, creative artists and all who use the internet.

featuring music by Iggy Pop, Wolf Alice, Ezra Furman and Nadine Shah.

Live Culture with Martha Willette Lewis -- Episode 30: The World Is Sound

Sat, 26 Aug 2017 11:00:00 GMT

This month's show has been recorded live at the Rubin Museum in New York and offers
a discussion with Curator of Exhibitions Risha Lee as she takes us through her latest exhibition The World Is Sound.

Join us for a special tour through the exhibition, which runs until January 8, 2018. The World Is Sound employs sound in new ways to animate and intensify the experience of art in the Rubin’s collection. Organized cyclically—from creation to death to rebirth—the exhibition explores different dimensions of sound and listening and its many functions in Tibetan Buddhism.

Featuring work by more than 20 artists, The World Is Sound juxtaposes new site-specific commissions and works by prominent contemporary sound artists with historical objects from the museum’s collection of Tibetan Buddhist art to encourage reflection on how we listen and to challenge entrenched ways of thinking.

Featuring work by: Éliane Radigue, Laetitia Sonami, and Bob Bielecki, C. Spencer Yeh, Christine Sun Kim, Ernst Karel, Hildegard Westerkamp, John Giorno, Jules Gimbrone, MSHR, Nate Wooley, Pauline Oliveros, Robert Aiki Aubrey Lowe, and Samita Sinha, and Tibetan Buddhist ritual music from monasteries in Nepal and India, the voices of Rubin visitors recorded in the OM Lab (using software and 3D sound design by Terence Caulkins of Arup). Daniel Neumann was Lead Acoustic Designer for this ambitious and complex exhibition.

Risha Lee is Curator of Exhibitions at the Rubin Museum, and is responsible for the creation and organization of The World Is Sound. She was born in Oakland and is now based in Brooklyn. She earned a BA with high honors from Harvard College and a PhD in Art History from Columbia University. Her work has focused on artistic connections and encounters that traditionally have fallen under the rubric of Asian art but defy easy categorization. She has taught a variety of art history courses at Columbia University and the American University of Beirut.

More information is available at:
http://rubinmuseum.org/events/exhibitions/the-world-is-sound and two articles by Risha on the exhibit published in SPIRAL magazine is online here:http://rubinmuseum.org/spiral/listening-and-liberation-the-world-is-sound
http://rubinmuseum.org/spiral/mediated-voices

The show ends withuburb a fragment of music by David Bowie from his soundtrack to the film "The Buddha of Suburbia"-- a track titled Ian Fish, U.K. Heir.

Live Culture Episode 28: Summer Tastes, Summer Sounds

Sat, 24 Jun 2017 11:00:00 GMT

Join us on sun-drenched stairs facing the Mediterranean, for a program filled with the sounds of motorboats, sea birds and the odd power tool! Episode 28 features a discussion recorded on the Côte d'Azur, with Anna Metcalfe, an American potter who makes works that invite the public to share food, talk about sustainability and the world bee crisis. We sat and chatted about her practice during her residency at the Camargo Foundation, and later I caught up with her at her "potluck" which brought together local food producers and fellow residents for an alfresco event on the Foundation's garden terrace, her first foray into an international version of the projects she spearheads in the USA.

Anna's work bridges ceramics and public art, exploring how art can be a vehicle for social change. A member of the Socially Engaged Craft Collective, Her work focuses on reframing our relationship to land and agriculture, and creating meaningful ways to connect with natural resources. Clay, an ancient medium that finds its way into every home - as a sink, a dish or a decorative object - is a ubiquitous and tactile material. She uses it as a springboard for public engagement, collaborating with community members who create the narratives that she weaves into the pieces specially made for the events she facilitates. Anna has been working as a public artist for 7 years and as a professional ceramic artist for 15 years.

This episode includes music by Sabrina Malheiros and One Ring Zero.

with thanks to Anna, Fleur Marin-Lamellet for her translations and all of the fellows and staff at the Camargo Foundation.

More about Anna Metcalfe can be found at:
http://www.annametcalfe.com
https://sociallyengagedcraftcollective.org
and
to help save the bees: http://www.greenpeace.org/usa/sustainable-agriculture/save-the-bees/

Live Culture with Martha Willette Lewis -- Episode 27 Things that fly: Flags and Overpasses

Sat, 27 May 2017 11:00:00 GMT

This month’s episode features a conversation with Dave Coon, one of the organizers of Broad Stripes and Bright Stars a major art exhibition opening in late June in New Haven, and, in the second half we offer a talk with Site Projects’ Laura Clarke and artist Robert Greenberg about the public artworks in the works for the highway underpass on state street, which is getting a major permanent installation by Shelia De Bretteville.

Broad Stripes and Bright Stars is being organized by Dave Coon and Aicha Woods and will run from June 29- August 12 at the Ely Center For Contemporary Art. This large group show features national and internationally known artista and will occupy the whole building and will include pop-up shop of artist-made flag related goods.

Ely Center of Contemporary Art
51 Trumbull Street, New Haven, CT

More about it here: https://www.elycenter.org/events/broad-stripes-and-bright-stars

Site Projects is hosting an event which will feature Robert Greenberg’s new film on June 10th at Union Station New Haven, free and open to the public.

More about that here: http://siteprojects.org/events/2017/5/24/community-celebration-for-lighting-your-way-at-union-station

And more about the massive underpass project here:http://siteprojects.org/sheila-de-bretteville-lighting-your-way

This show features musical clips from Fleetwood Mac and Wilco.

Live Culture with Martha Willette Lewis -- Episode 26

Sat, 29 Apr 2017 10:59:30 GMT

The nature of art : This month we have two sets of guest who bring together the visual arts and music.

We begin with Home Winds, a book of photographs that comes with it's own song!

This new publication from Planthouse Gallery celebrates the trees on an old New Jersey Farm, and speaks of time, the importance of stewardship and the longing for home. I will be in discussion with acclaimed photographer Benjamin Swett, singer/songwriter Heather Woods Broderick about this project.

Over the course of a year, Swett captured the essence of Home Winds Farm through a series of portraits of the maples, beeches, lindens and black cherry trees that have populated the land for decades. The farm has been preserved under the New Jersey Farmland Preservation Program, ensuring the land would be protected forever for agricultural use. Broderick’s tribute song is a soulful ballad inspired by memories from her own upbringing on forested land in the Northeast. Proceeds from the release of the song Home Winds will beneï¬ÂÂÂÂt institutions devoted to ï¬ÂÂÂÂghting climate change. Home Winds, the book and record, come out on April 28, to coincide with the exhibition at Planthouse Gallery, April 28 – June 20, in New York City.

Benjamin Swett is a New York-based writer and photographer with an interest in combining photographs and text. His books include New York City of Trees (2013), The Hudson Valley: A Cultural Guide (2009), Route 22 (2007), and Great Trees of New York City: A Guide (2000). He has worked as a newspaper reporter and was a writer and photographer for the New York City Parks Department for thirteen years before taking up photography full-time in 2001. His book New York City of Trees won the 2013 New York City Book Award for Photography and his photographs are included in public collections such as the Museum of the City of New York as well as in corporate and private collections.

Heather Woods Broderick is a singer/ songwriter born in the state of Maine to a musical family, She currently lives in Oregon. A professional touring musician, Heather's work often invokes ideas of home and place. She sings, plays piano, cello, guitar and flute and has worked accompanying other artists as well as launching her solo career. She has two albums out: Glider and From the Ground.

During the second half we speak with Fritz Horstman a visual artist who also has an audio component to his work-- writing, playing and singing as a part of the duo Spacelover, with Meredith Andrews. Much of Fritz’s recent work has centered around water and fluid systems such as rivers. He has described his work as addressing “the ever-moving seam between nature and culture”. He currently has work up at ODETTA gallery in Brooklyn as a part of the show River Woman, and was selected to participate in the current deCordova Biennial at the deCordova Museum and Sculpture Park, where he has projects both in the gallery space and outdoors. He has also traveled to do work at residencies in Japan and in the Arctic Circle, and more locally as resident artist at the Yale Peabody Museum.

More about this months guests can be found at:

http://www.benjaminswett.com/
http://www.heatherwoodsbroderick.com/
http://planthouse.net/home-winds/

http://www.fritzhorstman.com/
https://spacelover.bandcamp.com/

Live Culture with Martha Willette Lewis --episode 24 february 2017

Sat, 25 Feb 2017 10:59:35 GMT

History Lessons-- WPKN is celebrating this Black History Month with a rich variety of special programming. With that in mind, February's Live Culture focuses on powerful images relating to politics, past protest, and the traces of History surrounding us.

During the first half of the show I am in conversation with curator La Tanya S. Autry, the Marcia Brady Tucker Senior Fellow, in the Department of Modern and Contemporary Art at the Yale University Art Gallery, about her latest exhibition Let Us March On: Lee Friedlander and the Prayer Pilgrimage for Freedom. This major show focuses on early civil rights images being exhibited for the first time, in commemoration of the sixtieth anniversary of the march. Lee Friedlander’s photographs offer a rare glimpse of the Prayer Pilgrimage for Freedom, a critical moment in American civil rights history.

On May 17, 1957 thousands of people united in front of the Lincoln Memorial, in Washington, D.C. At this first large-scale gathering of African Americans on the National Mall, elegantly clad protesters called on federal authorities to enforce desegregation, support voting rights, and combat racial violence. Friedlander documented the crowds as well as the illustrious figures who attended or spoke at the march, such as Martin Luther King, Jr., Rosa Parks, Ella Baker, Mahalia Jackson, and Harry Belafonte. Dr King gave his iconic "Give Us The Ballot" address at this gathering. La Tanya has organized an exciting roster of events in tandem with the exhibition and we will talk about the work, it's relationship to events and protests today, and the on-going battle for justice in the United States.

During the second half we catch up with artist and curator David Borawski, about his plethora of projects including showing his work in the forthcoming exhibitions: Present Danger at Marymount Manhattan College in New York, Equators, a collaborative art project at the Housatonic Museum in Bridgeport, and the forthcoming Mincing Words: The Tactile Language of Unrest, at The Institute Library, New Haven.

David's conceptually driven installations reflect upon iconic cultural and societal events that have influenced major shifts in our collective consciousness, but which now we may be near the point of forgetting. His immersive works use text, video and mixed media - including found objects - to invoke such charged historic moments as the Black Panther trials in New Haven. He has spoken of past events as being "uncanny precursors to present-day realities", a sentiment which permeates his work. David is also busy organizing exhibitions of other artist's work including Any World That I'm Welcome To, up now at Dehn Gallery at MCC on Main in Manchester, Ct., and Lost and Found, which just closed at Real Art Ways in Hartford, Ct.

Live Culture with Martha Willette Lewis--Episode 22

Sat, 31 Dec 2016 11:00:00 GMT

What Are We Gonna Do Now?

Guests this month are: Curator Olga Kopenkina and Artist and Writer, Gregory Sholette with their take on what to expect, do, and the mechanics of contemporary protest now. In the wake of the recent presidential election. many have expressed uncertainty about how best to proceed, how to incorporate protest into one's creative practice. For this episode of Live Culture - the last of the year –I spoke with the two recently in their New York apartment where I recorded our conversation about their various projects, our collective predicament, Feminism, Human Rights and how to engage in protest in a meaningful way.

About Olga Kopenkina: She is a Belarus-born, New York-based independent curator and art critic. Her exhibitionss include the recent Feminisim is Politics! at the Pratt Manhattan Gallery, Lenin Icebreaker Revisited, at the NY Austrian Cultural Forum; Sound of Silence: Art during Dictatorship, EFA Project Space, NY,; Reading Lenin with Corporations , Russia: Significant Other, Anna Akhmatova Museum, St. Petersburg, Russia, Post-Diasporas: Voyages and Missions at the First Moscow Biennale, Moscow. Kopenkina has contributed to such publications as Art Journal, Moscow Art Magazine, ArtMargins, Manifesta Journal, Modern Painters, Afterimage, and others. She is an adjunct professor at New York University, Steinhardt School for Arts and Art Professions, Department of Media, Culture and Communication. Olga's Upcoming exhibit, co-curated with Yevgeniy Fiks is The Work of Love, The Queer of Labor at Franklin Street Works in Stamford, CT, which will run from May 13 - August 17, 2017.

About Gregory Sholette: He is a New York City based artist, writer, and core member of the activist art collective Gulf Labor Coalition, a group of artists advocating for migrant workers constructing museums in Abu Dhabi. He is a founding member of Political Art Documentation/Distribution, which issued publications on politically engaged art in the 1980s; of REPOhistory, which repossessed suppressed histories in New York in the 1990s. Written works include dozens of essays, three edited volumes, including The Interventionists: A Manuel for the Creative Disruption of Everyday Life, Co-authored with Nato Thompson, and It’s the Political Economy, Stupid , as well as his own works Dark Matter: Art and Politics in an Age of Enterprise Culture , and Delirium and Resistance: Activist Art and The Crisis Of Capitalism. Sholette has documented four decades of activist art that, for its ephemerality, politics, and market resistance, might otherwise remain invisible. He has contributed to such journals as Eflux, Critical Inquiry, Texte zur Kunst, October, CAA Art Journal and Manifesta Journal among other publications. His recent art installations include Imaginary Archive at the Institute of Contemporary Art, University of Pennsylvania and the White Box at Zeppelin University, Germany. His collaborative performance Precarious Workers Pageant premiered at the 2015 Venice Biennalle. Sholette is an Associate Professor in the Queens College Art Department, City University of New York where he helped establish the new MFA Concentration SPQ (Social Practice Queens). He has a forthcoming book: Activist Art Reloaded: Essays on Oppositional Culture and Capitalist Crisis: 1997-2017, Contracted by Pluto Press.

Gregory's latest exhibit Darker runs from January 7-29 at Station Independent Projects, NY. This is Sholette's third solo exhibition at this venue. For Darker he will present a series of ink, pencil and acrylic wash drawings portraying scenes of recent activist art and direct political resistance based on photographs of activist art and other political protests.

Please see here for more information on organizing and on Gregory's projects:

Who Is Organizing Now?: https://titanpad.com/x5wh7V0gkG
website: http://www.gregorysholette.com/
blog: http://gregsholette.tumblr.com/
books: http://press.uchicago.edu/…/books/author/S/G/au21610617.html

This month’s program features excerpted music from:
The Indigo Girls interpreting The Clash
The Hot Sardines interpreting a tune from Walt Disney’s Junglebook
Purple Haze interpreting Tracy Chapman
The Clash live at Shea Stadium interpreting The Clash

Live Culture with Martha Willette Lewis Episode 20

Sat, 29 Oct 2016 11:00:00 GMT

Episode 20: Greetings from the Labyrinth!

This month we are presenting a live broadcast from the Erector Square weekend of City-Wide-Open-Studios, an annual event that has hundreds of artists opening their studio doors to the public. Guests include open studios artists: Leila Daw, John Arabolos, Kathryn Frund, Lani Asucion, and Janet Lage, Artspace New Haven Director Helen Kauder and Erector Square Managment's Kathi Telman.

This special event has kindly been made possible through the generosity and help of: Kenneth Boroson Architects, The Erector Square Management Company, LLC. and the wonderful volunteers and staff at WPKN.

more about Erector Square open studios weekend here:

https://artspacenewhaven.org/cwos-home/oct-29-30-erector-square-weekend/

Live Culture with Martha Willette Lewis--Episode 15

Sat, 28 May 2016 11:01:00 GMT

This month's episode begins in conversation with Vanessa German, the current artist at The Wadsworth Athenaeum’s MATRIX series. German’s installation “i come to do a violence to the lie” . MATRIX 174 will transform the Bunce Gallery into an underground excavation site, with strings of bare light bulbs minimally illuminating a powerful female army of over 30 of German’s figurative sculptures installed in military formation on an earthen floor. The presentation was inspired by the estimated 7,000 terra cotta warriors buried near the 2,000 year-old tomb of Chinese Emperor Qin Shi Huangdi.

In her signature prose, German describes them as:

“an army of healers.an army of weepers. An army of protectors. Armed and dangerous upon the lie.” She defines their role in “a sustained accumulation of destruction to the vicious and debilitating compendium of hate, lies, and murder; the shapeshifting nature of the weapons aimed against my very flesh and soul. (i do not have to tell you that___black lives matter.)”

In May she was artist in residence at Hartford Public Schools.
In July she will return to Hartford for summer sessions with community groups including True Colors, Real Art Ways’ Park Art, Billings Forge Community Works, and The Wadsworth Atheneum’s Summer Community Studio.

Vanessa German lives in the Homewood section of Pittsburgh, where crime, drugs, and
gun violence continually wreak havoc on the historically African-American urban community,
and where many residents have personal connections to the victims of violence. In response to
her life experiences, German creates inspiring sculptures in the tradition of African “Nkisi”
power figures, divine protective objects thickly encrusted with nails, beads, shells, and found
objects that evoke suits of armor. Housing mystical forces to eradicate evil, German’s enigmatic
contemporary variations of the ritualistic sculptures embody a performative, spiritual, and
affirming function.

Matrix 174 begins June 9 and runs through Sept. 4, 2016.
An exhibition opening reception on June 8 will feature a performance of German’s
signature style of spoken word opera, a hybrid of spoken word poetry combining the theatrical
elements of hip hop, African storytelling and opera. Tickets are available for purchase online at www.thewadsworth.org.

The Wadsworth Athenaeum Museum of Art is located at 600 Main Street Hartford, CT 06013

During the second half of the show, Martha is in discussion with Artist Debbie Hesse about her project Sway. Shift: Sea Garden, version 12.0, A community-enhanced installation at Vauiso Greenhouse Growers, located at 75 Hosely Ave., Branford. The installation is on view May 10-June 15, during daily retail hours.

This work aims to spark a visual conversation about the relationship between agriculture and ocean Farming while highlighting local initiatives to grow underwater restorative sea gardens that address issues of food security and the environment.

Hesse has partnered with multiple organizations for this project including Vauiso farms and Green Wave. This project is the aftermath of her fall residency at Hongti Art Center in Busan, South Korea where she researched traditional seaweed cultivation practices and created a video installation.

Debbie Hesse is an installation artist who combines organic and artificial materials and forms with cast and painted shadows to create parallel, hybrid, ephemeral environments that explore ideas about growth, materiality and the ethereal.

Debbie was recently awarded an International Artist-in-Residence in Busan, South Korea, a Regional Art Initiative Grant from the Connecticut Office of the Arts and Shoreline Arts Aliance and is a recipient of a Rhode Island Visual Artist Sea Grant, a Connecticut Visual Artist Sea Grant, and a Vermont Studio Residency Individual Grant.

www.geomorphictank.com
http://www.vaiusofarms.com/

playlist of music excerpts:
Hell you Talmbout,
Janelle Monae and Wonderland

Burn the Witch,
radiohead, moon shaped pool

Octopus’s Garden
Rockabye Baby! lullaby renditions of beatles songs

Live Culture- Episode 13

Sat, 26 Mar 2016 11:00:23 GMT

This month’s guests are artist Mohamad Hafez who has an exhibit at Real Art Ways, Hartford, and Robyn Shapiro, deputy director of the Lowline, a project taking place in Manhattan to create the world’s first underground park.

We begin in conversation with Mohamad Hafez, whose exhibit Desperate Cargo opened at Real Art Ways in Hartford on March 17th. Syrians worldwide continue to struggle to comprehend the recent aftermath of the Arab spring and its impact on their home country. What initially began as a Syrian uprising against injustice, tyranny, and marginalization of the country’s populace is now resulting in the largest humanitarian crisis of the 21st Century.

An artist and architect, Hafez was born in Damascus, raised in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and educated in the United States. Hafez’s art reflects the political turmoil in the Middle East through the compilation of found objects, paint and scrap metal. Using his architectural skills, Hafez creates political microcosms of life in this fraught environment. Desperate Cargo is a multimedia installation that incorporates a life raft, miniature elements, and photography, focussing on the war and the current refugee crisis facing us all now.

Desperate Cargo is on view until April 24th at Real Art Ways Hartford,to find out more:
http://www.realartways.org/event/mohamad-hafez/2016-03-12/

visit Mohamad's website here: http://www.mohamadhafez.com/

The charity organization Aid All Syrians here: http://www.aidallsyrians.org/

During the second half of the show, Martha will be in discussion with Robyn Shapiro, deputy director of The Lowline - the world’s first underground park, slated to open in 2020, in the Lower East Side of Manhattan. We will discuss the technology, artistry, and challenges that are involved in such a massive undertaking and why this could be a model for other such projects globally. Robyn oversees many of The Lowline’s core activities, from community engagement to strategic projects, including The Young Designers Program, which focuses on solar power projects with students.

The Lowline proposes innovative solar technology to illuminate the historic Williamsburg Bridge Trolley Terminal, just below Delancey Street. The site was opened in 1908 but has been unused since 1948 when trolley service was discontinued. Despite six decades of neglect, the space still retains remnant cobblestones, crisscrossing rail tracks and vaulted ceilings. It is also directly adjacent to the existing JMZ subway track at the Essex Street subway stop– so park visitors and subway riders would interact daily. This hidden historic site is located in one of the least green areas of New York City— presenting a unique opportunity to reclaim unused space for public good.

Designed by James Ramsey of Raad Studio, the proposed solar technology involves the creation of a “remote skylight.” In this approach, sunlight passes through a glass shield above the parabolic collector, and is reflected and gathered at one focal point, and directed underground. Sunlight is transmitted onto a reflective surface on the distributor dish underground, transmitting that sunlight into the space. This technology would transmit the necessary wavelengths of light to support photosynthesis, enabling plants and trees to grow. During periods of sunlight, electricity would not be necessary to light the space.

Currently The Lowline Lab is open -- a free community gathering space that displays cutting-edge solar technology and serves as a laboratory for lighting and horticulture experiments. The Lab also features cultural and community events. By 2020, The Lowline aims to have completed negotiations with the MTA and the City to build and operate the underground park.

Visitors may visit The Lowline Lab during the weekends, until 2017: http://www.thelowline.org/get-involved/lowline-lab/

Live Culture with Martha Willette Lewis Episode 12

Sat, 27 Feb 2016 11:00:00 GMT

This month Martha's guests are two different kinds of gallerists: Fred Giampietro running the eponymous gallery in New Haven, and Peter Konsterlie, Director of the The Schelfhaudt Gallery at the University of Bridgeport. Both care deeply about visual art and bring it to our communities in different ways: find out more about their offerings and processes.

Wee begin with a discussion with Artist Becca Lowry and Fred Giampietro, Director of Giampietro Gallery in New Haven about thier participation in the forthcoming (March 2-6) Volta Art Fair in New York. Topics include art-fairs, and their role in the gallery's life, and we will get a behind-the-scene look at the mechanics of such enterprises. Giampietro Gallery is the only gallery from Connecticut to be participating in Volta and one of only three new England galleries included in the lineup. Volta is unique in that it requires the gallery to showcase one artist from their roster- this year Fred has selected artist Becca Lowry, whose show with fellow artist Tom Burckhardt runs at his downtown gallery from February 27 to April 2nd.

More on Volta and how to get tickets here
More on Giampietro Gallery

For the second half of the show, Martha is in discussion with Peter Konsterlie, Artist and Curator about his current exhibitions at The Schelfhaudt Gallery at the University of Bridgeport, Arnold Bernhard Center, which is located on campus at the newly renovated Shintaro Akatsu School of Design. The exhibition Parts is Parts: Assemblage & Collage features the work of seven contemporary regional artists working with appropriated images and found objects.The second show Reminants of Haiti features the art collection of Douglas Wade, a local Bridgeport businessman with a fond interest of the Haitian culture. The collection consists of hand painted metal works, surrealist landscapes, and sequined weavings. Both exhibits run Feb 11- March 19. We take a look at what the gallery offers its visitors, and discuss what the future holds for this vital venue right here on the same campus as WPKN!

More about The Schelfhaudt Gallery
The whole show will be laced with music selected to reflect this Valentine's/Black History Month of February.

Live Culture Episode 10 with Martha Willette Lewis

Sat, 26 Dec 2015 11:00:00 GMT

Episode 10- The Venice Biennale part 2

For December edition- the last for 2015- martha returns to The Venice Biennale. The conversation starts with Artist Judi Harvest and her installation Room of Dreams, in the collateral Dialogue of Fire exhibition, which was curated partially by Luca Berta and Francesca Guibelei who were featured in last month’s episode. They both have cameos in this month’s broadcast along with Harvest, whose glass-based installation occupied the frescoed bedroom of the Palazzo Tiepolo. Judi was one of Martha's very first guests on the show, so it’s fitting that she ends the year with her, visiting her honeybee garden in Murano as well.....

For the second half Martha is in discussion with exhibition invigilator/artist Phillip McCrilly and Australian curator and writer Elyse Goldfinch about Sean Lynch's Adventure:Capital installation and video representing Ireland at the Arsenalle. Lynch's work was curated by Woodrow Kernohan and features the voice of well-known Irish actress Gina Moxley in the video sequences.

Live Culture with Martha Willette Lewis --episode 2, April 25, 2015

Sat, 25 Apr 2015 11:00:00 GMT

Aprill's theme is things that are Appearing/Emerging....
Guests :
• Artist Ellen Hackl Fagan, who created and runs ODETTA, a gallery in Bushwick,
and whose next exhibit "TEXTUAL" opens on April 24th, 2015
(http://www.odettagallery.com/)
and
• Marcus Galen Mitchell, Curator of Programs at
NO LONGER EMPTY, with
• Regine Basha, curator of NLE's exhibit "WHEN YOU CUT INTO THE PRESENT THE FUTURE LEAKS OUT"
which inhabits the long-abandoned Old Bronx Borough Courthouse.

The exhibition occupies three floors, and include the works of 26 artists and site-â€specific works."When You Cut into the Present the Future Leaks Out" echoes approaches
attributed to cut-¬â€up poetry, early Hip-¬â€Hop, Spoken Word, and the sculptural practice of artist Gordon Matta-¬â€ Clark, who sliced into urban spaces as social commentary.
(http://www.nolongerempty.org/)

Live Culture with Martha Willette Lewis --episode 1, March 28, 2015

Sat, 28 Mar 2015 11:00:00 GMT

Episode 1: Things That Are Vanishing, globally, nationally and locally, things worth memorializing, celebrating, rallying for, and keeping in the spotlight.

Things we do not want, in the words of poet Dylan Thomas, to "go gentle into that good night."

guests:
• Artist Judi Harvest,who divides her time between new york and Venice Italy, and whose practice involves collaborations with Bees, and with glass blowers on the island of Murano Italy. Judi will be participating in the forthcoming Venice Biennale in a collateral exhibition, and will talk with us about beekeeping and working with master artisans in a climate of upheaval and change. (for more please see here:http://judiharvest.com/denatured-honeybees-murano)
and
• Paul Clabby, artist and curator at the John Slade Ely House in New Haven, a venerable arts exhibition venue in a historic building, which is slated to close this summer. We will celebrate the life and times of the gallery, which is one of several culture institutions in the city which are undergoing radical change. The John Slade Ely house under Paul's tenure has been the locus of many projects that have profoundly affected the lives and careers of area artists, community groups, and students. (for more please see here:http://elyhouse.org/)

playlist:
1. soundtrack music by Hennie Vrienten from the 1988 film The Vanishing,
2. Honey Bee by Zee Avi
3. Just Like Honey by The Jesus and Mary Chain

Live Culture Episode 9 with Martha Willette Lewis: All The World's Futures, Part 1

Sat, 28 Nov 2015 11:00:58 GMT

Closing out 2015 Live Culture focuses on live recordings made during the Biennale di Venezia and airs over two months Nov 28 & Dec 26 - to fit it all in.

For the November broadcast I featured:
interviews with Artwise -Dea Vanagan, Susie Allen, Laura Culpan, the curators from the vast international exhibit VITA VITALE at the Azerbaijan Pavilion
and in the second half, I have an audio tour with
Francesca Giubilei and Luca Berta, the curators of the Brian Eno/ Beezy Bailey collaboration: THE SOUND OF CREATION, at the Palazzo Pisani, Conservatorio Benedetto Marcello, Venice’s music school.

More about this year's Biennale which ran from May through November 2015 here

More about VITA VITALE here
More about Artwise here
More aboutTHE SOUND OF CREATION here.
Ayoutube video interview with Beezy Bailey here.

Live Culture Episode 8 with Martha Willette Lewis Arty Beasts & Talented Monsters

Sat, 31 Oct 2015 11:00:00 GMT

Arty Beasts & Talented Monsters

"Glendower: I can call spirits from the vasty deep.

Hotspur: Why, so can I, or so can any man; But will they come when you do call for them?"

- William Shakespeare, from Henry IV, part 1

This month's program offers up a beastly menagerie for creative children of any age- first we have the team behind the book 43 Monsters, which is about to come out in a new, family friendly edition for kids.
My guests are
Artist Chuck Webster,
Author Arthur Bradford and
Gallerist Katie Michel, one of the founders of Planthouse Gallery NY, who published the original 43 Monsters in 2013 as a hardcover art book, printed in limited edition by Trifolio in Italy.The irreverent text has been updated for its family friendly debut, and the book laid out in accessible format for monster-appreciators of every age.

During the second half
I am in conversation with:
Author, Composer and Performer Michael Hearst,
About his ongoing project: a CD- Songs for Unusual Creatures, A Book: Unusual Creatures: A Mostly Accurate Account of Some of Earth's Strangest Animals, and now a digital PBS production. He maintains a lively performance schedule and often uses unusual instruments to portray his menagerie of eccentric and truly wondrous animals. Michael has upcoming performances at Barbès, In Brooklyn, Carnegie Hall, NY, and at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Throughout the program we will hear a sampling some of Micheal's audio animals.
so:
“Let the wild rumpus start!”
â€• From Maurice Sendak, Where the Wild Things Are

Live Culture with Martha Willette Lewis --episode 1, March 28, 2015

Sat, 28 Mar 2015 11:00:00 GMT

Episode 1: Things That Are Vanishing, globally, nationally and locally, things worth memorializing, celebrating, rallying for, and keeping in the spotlight. Things we do not want, in the words of poet Dylan Thomas, to " go gentle into that good night."
guests:
• Artist Judi Harvest,who divides her time between new york and Venice Italy, and whose practice involves collaborations with Bees, and with glass blowers on the island of Murano Italy. Judi will be participating in the forthcoming Venice Biennale in a collateral exhibition, and will talk with us about beekeeping and working with master artisans in a climate of upheaval and change. (for more please see here:http://judiharvest.com/denatured-honeybees-murano)
and
• Paul Clabby, artist and curator at the John Slade Ely House in New Haven, a venerable arts exhibition venue in a historic building, which is slated to close this summer. We will celebrate the life and times of the gallery, which is one of several culture institutions in the city which are undergoing radical change. The John Slade Ely house under Paul's tenure has been the locus of many projects that have profoundly affected the lives and careers of area artists, community groups, and students. (for more please see here:http://elyhouse.org/)
playlist:
1. soundtrack music by Hennie Vrienten from the 1988 film The Vanishing,
2. Honey Bee by Zee Avi
3. Just Like Honey by The Jesus and Mary Chain

Live Culture episode 7 with Martha Willette Lewis

Sat, 26 Sep 2015 11:00:00 GMT

Episode 7: Grand Gestures
This month my guests are :

Susan L. Talbott, Director and CEO of the Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford, which is celebrating a GRAND REOPENING on September 19 after a long renovation.The Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art is the oldest continually-operating public art museum in the United States and has been undergoing a major renovation since 2010. The $33 million project renewed the museum’s historic structures and added 16 new gallery spaces. The Museum, which has expanded by adding nearly 16,000 square feet of exhibition space, has many exciting things in store for us!

More about The Wadsworth Atheneum here: thewadsworth.org/

and :

Artist/print-maker Roxanne Faber Savage and gallerist Gabriel Da Silva, who, with The Westville Village Renaissance Alliance, have an upcoming giant steamroller printmaking project in the works.This public event, happening in October 17-18 as a part of City-Wide Open Studios Festival, organized by Artspace New Haven, is free and open to the public.

more about the CWOS festival here
http://www.cwos.org/oct-17-18-transported-weekend/
more about Roxanne Faber Savage http://www.roxanneprints.com/
more about DaSilva Gallery here
http://dasilva-gallery.com/

Live Culture :Episode 6 with Martha Willette Lewis

Sat, 29 Aug 2015 11:00:00 GMT

Poise and Cooperation:
This month I follow up on what's happening with the closing of the John Slade Ely house in New Haven with Jeanne Criscola and Ron Pacacha, members of Friends of the John Slade Ely House (JSEH) who are organizing the efforts to save the art center form being sold. keep up with their progress here:

www.change.org/p/friends-of-the-john-slade-ely-house-save-the-john-slade-ely-house-of-contemporary-art-fbcc2aa6-282f-460c-9c07-bad33ede121d
and,

I am in discussion with Tristan Nielsen, a young circus artist who recently performed in New York as a part of Sequence 8,to find out about his rising career and the daily life of an acrobat. Circus acts are enjoying a renaissance and often blur genre boundaries, blending aspects of cabaret, dance, magic, Broadway theater into unique spectaculars. Cirque du Soleil with their acts in Las Vegas have whetted the public's appetite for such performances and have raised the bar in terms of artistry. Tristan is a part of a new generation of performers taking this most ancient art to new heights. I spoke with Tristan on the first day of his performance with Midnight Circus, which is currently taking place in parks around Chicago- more can be found here: midnightcircus.net/