Scoop has an Ethical Paywall
Work smarter with a Pro licence Learn More

Art & Entertainment | Book Reviews | Education | Entertainment Video | Health | Lifestyle | Sport | Sport Video | Search

 

Reimagining the urban – art and public space

Reimagining the urban – art and public space

A global search to find the planet’s most outstanding public art will culminate in an awards ceremony, exhibition and conference in Auckland in early July.

The 2015 International Award for Public Art (IAPA) seeks to promote and advance culturally diverse, socially responsive public art. An exhibition of case studies featuring the top 32 projects from around the world will be on display at Auckland Art Gallery during the conference, and the 2015 winner will be announced at a prize-giving dinner at the gallery on Wednesday 1 July.

Projects as diverse as a floating school in Nigeria, a restaurant serving cuisine from countries the USA is in conflict with, an experimental sexual politics initiative in India, and a post-earthquake pavilion for the people of Christchurch, represent a selection of the rich, challenging, and divergent practice of public art.

The International Award for Public Art is a biennial search for the most outstanding recent socially-engaged art projects. The inaugural award (2013) was won by Venezuelan artist and architect Alejandro Haiek Coll, co-director of design collective LabProFab, for the Tiuna el Fuerte Cultural Park project, an inventive and community focused redevelopmemt of an abandoned parking lot in Caracas.

The 2015 conference, titled Cities in a Climate of Change: Public Art and Environmental and Social Ecologies, is jointly hosted by Elam School of Fine Arts at the University of Auckland and Shandong University of Art and Design, China. Held at the University of Auckland from 1-4 July 2015, the event will bring together artists, curators, urban planners, architects and museum directors from around the world to discuss art and its relationship to urban development.

Advertisement - scroll to continue reading

Are you getting our free newsletter?

Subscribe to Scoop’s 'The Catch Up' our free weekly newsletter sent to your inbox every Monday with stories from across our network.

Cities in a Climate of Change will encourage dialogue about public art and the place-making practices contributing to the formation of ‘liveable cities’. Alongside keynote speakers and the inaugural IAPA winner, creators of six of the finalist projects will present and discuss their work. The conference will also include presentations on the scholarship of studio teaching, focusing on the public dimension of the built, visual, and performing arts.

Chair of the Institute for Public Art, British curator and cultural consultant Lewis Biggs comments:

“Congratulations to Auckland for hosting this combined event of a Conference, Exhibition and Awards ceremony - which together focus on the power and flexibility of public art as a rapidly developing area of knowledge and expertise globally. The Institute for Public Art was founded to undertake and share research, to create a supportive network for practitioners, and to advocate public art to decision makers worldwide. Cities in a Climate of Change demonstrates how vital these motives are, and how much there is to celebrate once knowledge starts to flow from continent to continent."

International contributors - Cities in a Climate of Change: Public Art and Environmental and Social Ecologies has attracted an impressive line-up of international contributors:

Alejandro Haiek Coll is one of the most innovative alternative young urbanists practicing today. Based in Venezuela but active internationally, his projects have a strong social component and are focused on the renewal and resuscitation of inactive landscapes, and how architecture can assist in the creation of participatory citizenship able to respond to the pressures of extreme natural phenomena and social upheaval. In 2014 he initiated an architectural public art project in Christchurch in collaboration with The Physics Room.

Owen Hatherley is a British writer and journalist of architecture and urbanism, the politics of urban space, and popular culture. He is the author of A New Kind of Bleak (2013), A Guide to the New Ruins of Great Britain (2010) and Militant Modernism (2009). Hatherley also writes for a variety of publications, including Building Design, Frieze, the Guardian and the New Statesman.

Mary Jane Jacob is an American curator, writer, and currently Professor of Sculpture at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and the Executive Director of Exhibitions and Exhibition Studies. The former Chief Curator of the Museums of Contemporary Art in Chicago and Los Angeles, Jacobs shifted her workplace from the museum to the street to critically engage in the discourse around public space. A leading figure in the field of public, site-specific, and socially engaged art, her programme Culture in Action created an alternative model for art in the urban context by bringing artists into direct partnership with community members, expanding their role from spectator to participant.

Philip Tinari is a writer and curator and since 2011 has been director of the Ullens Centre for Contemporary Art (UCCA) in Beijing. At the UCCA he has organised exhibitions of leading artists including Xu Zhen, Liu Wei, Kan Xuan, Wang Xingwei, Gu Dexin, Tino Sehgal, Taryn Simon, Sterling Ruby, and Ryan Trecartin. Prior to joining UCCA he was editorial director of the bilingual art magazine LEAP. Tinari previously served as China advisor to Art Basel and was a lecturer in criticism at the Central Academy of Fine Arts. He is a contributing editor to Artforum, a member of the Guggenheim Asian Art Council, and was recently named a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum.

Lewis Biggs is Chair of the Institute of Public Art, a curator, writer and cultural consultant. He has previously held positions as the Director of Liverpool Biennial (2000-2011) and Director of Tate Liverpool (1990-2000). As Director of Liverpool Biennial, Biggs played an active role in the formation and leadership of Liverpool Art and Regeneration Consortium, which delivered the majority of the City’s arts programmes, and of Culture Campus, which created links between the arts sector and three Liverpool universities.

Jack Becker is founder and executive director of the US based Forecast Public Art. As a public artist and programme administrator, Becker specialises in projects that connect the ideas and energies of artists with the needs and opportunities of communities. He has organised more than 70 exhibitions, 50 publications, and numerous special events. Widely published in the field of public art and placemaking, he is the publisher of the influential journal Public Art Review.

IAPA 2015 finalists - 2015 International Award for Public Art finalists speaking at the conference:

Kunlé Adeyemi - Makoko Floating School (Africa region): a prototype floating structure, built for the historic water community of Makoko, located on the lagoon heart of Nigeria’s largest city, Lagos. The project takes an innovative approach to addressing the community’s social and physical needs in view of the impact of climate change and a rapidly urbanising African context.

Gap Filler - The Pallet Pavilion (South East Asia and Oceania region): a temporary community events venue built from 3000 pallets by volunteers in post-disaster Christchurch. The visually engaging and dynamic space acted as a showcase for the possibilities of innovative transitional architecture in a city ready to embrace new ideas.

Jasmeen Patheja – Talk to Me (Middle East and Central Asia region): the project emerged in Bangalore as an artistic and political response to the widespread harassment, molestation and rape of women. Talk to Me identified a stretch of road where women felt threatened and encouraged them to set up tables and chairs, inviting the public to engage in conversation. The project reframes perceptions of vulnerability, reclaims space for those who feel most threatened, and brokers encounters across social and gender divisions.

Wallace Chang - Kai Tak River Green Corridor (East Asia region): a project bringing environmental awareness and action to what used to be one of the most polluted stretches of water in Hong Kong, the so-called ‘Kai Tak Nullah.’ By staging participatory art projects along the river during the 2011 Green Arts Festival, the project brought new life to the area, building ties between residents and the environment.

Josep Pujiula - The Labyrinth and Cabins of Argelaguer (Eurasia region): for more than 20 years outsider artist Pujiula has created a series of towers, bridges, tunnels, walkways and cabins using trees and other natural materials near the river Fluvià in Catalonia, Spain. Undaunted by local authorities and the development of a new motorway, the project has became a monument to perseverence and much loved by the local community.

Jon Rubin and Dawn Weleski - Conflict Kitchen (North America region): Located in a kiosk within the park surrounding the Carnegie Museums of Pittsburgh, Conflict Kitchen is both a restaurant and a socially engaged public art project. Serving cuisine from countries the USA is in conflict with, the project expands public engagement and creates awareness of the culture, politics, and issues at stake.

Alongside the Cities in a Climate of Change conference, Tokyo-based artist Jun Kitazawa will create a socially based public art project in central Auckland during the 2015 IAPA. Kitazawa is a Elam International Artist in Residence who has established a practice working in collaboration with local government, educational institutions, business and local communities to develop projects which relate to everyday life.

The 2015 International Award for Public Art Exhibition and Conference
1-4 July 2015
http://iapa2015.nz
Conference: The University of Auckland
Exhibition: Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki

The University of Auckland’s National Institute of Creative Arts and Industries comprises the Elam School of Fine Arts, School of Architecture and Planning, the Centre for Art Studies, the School of Music and the Dance Studies Programme.

ends

© Scoop Media

Advertisement - scroll to continue reading
 
 
 
Culture Headlines | Health Headlines | Education Headlines

 
 
 
 
 
 

LATEST HEADLINES

  • CULTURE
  • HEALTH
  • EDUCATION
 
 
  • Wellington
  • Christchurch
  • Auckland
 
 
 

Join Our Free Newsletter

Subscribe to Scoop’s 'The Catch Up' our free weekly newsletter sent to your inbox every Monday with stories from across our network.