WPKN Archives Archive Feed: design

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 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 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