Zoetrope Bike Sculpture and Mandalas; "Tamara as the Wicked Witch of the West Melting at Mad Mark’s Castle Window†Mandala, 48 x 48 inch backlit photograph. Artworks by Judith Leinen & Robin Lasser with former Albany Bulb resident Tamara Robinson, 2014. Click here to download a high-res version and here for additional photos
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Jess Young, Director of Communications & Community Engagement SOMArts Cultural Center
415-863-1414 x112 • jess@somarts.org
SOMArts Cultural Center Presents Refuge in Refuse: Homesteading Art & Culture Project Exhibition February 12–March 14, 2015
Opening Event Thursday, February 12, 6pm to 9pm Explore the art, culture and ecology of a decommissioned Bay Area landfill peninsula, the Albany Bulb, through group exhibition & activities
San Francisco, CA, December 11, 2014–– For more than two decades artists, recreationalists, and the homeless have shared the Albany Bulb, a decommissioned landfill peninsula located along the east shore of the San Francisco Bay, creating infrastructure and exploring borders between public and private urban space. Refuge in Refuse: Homesteading Art & Culture Project, a group exhibition presented by SOMArts Cultural Center and on view with free admission Thursday, February 12 through Saturday, March 14, 2015, includes audio stories, video, photography, painting, sculpture, interventions, and 3D scans reflecting the intersections of architecture, art, ecology and community at the Bulb.
Refuge in Refuse is the 2nd of 3 SOMArts Commons Curatorial Residency exhibitions in 2015, but residency recipients Robin Lasser, Danielle Siembieda and Barbara Boissevain envision their role differently than the word “curator†may imply.
“The spirit of the Albany Bulb has always embraced the wild, unsanctioned and off-leash and underscores the question: who owns the right to do what in public space? We are not ‘curating’ the artworks included in Refuge in Refuse–– we are connecting and gathering vantage points from those who have a stake in the Bulb,†said Lasser, who counts herself among those, but acknowledges, “Those with the most at stake are, of course, the people who have made this landfill not only their home, but a significant destination point brimming with vitality and culture.â€
Refuge in Refuse places an emphasis on storytelling and cultural production by Bulb residents, who provide insights into a unique ecosystem on the brink of change. In May, 2013 the Albany City Council voted to transfer the bulb from the city of Albany to the California State Park system, marking the end of the high-profile eviction battle between City of Albany officials and a group of housing advocates representing the Bulb's otherwise homeless residents. The residents were evicted April 25, 2014.
Over a dozen former residents who were displaced are represented in Refuge in Refuse as contributing artists, collaborators, and subjects in the artworks and investigations of others. A digital film screening during the opening event, “Where Do You Go When It Rains?†provides a glimpse of daily life at the Bulb. The film was written, produced, directed, and edited collectively by former residents Katherine Cody, Jimbow the Hobow, Andy Kreamer, Phyl Lewis, Chester Mounten and Amber Whitson, who were forced by police to leave the Bulb.
Refuge in Refuse utilizes audio stories, video, photography, painting, sculpture, interventions, and 3D scans collected at the Bulb and shares these assets in the SOMArts exhibition and, publically, in two versions of interactive and mobile media: website (www.refugeinrefuse.weebly.com), and augmented reality. The exhibition includes investigations of the Bulb across disciplines, including visual art and media, urban planning, landscape architecture and contemporary archeology mapping systems.
Refuge in Refuse partnered with an architectural surveying company, F3 & Associates, to do 3D Scanning of notable residents and structures at the Bulb before their eviction and demolition in mid-2014. The virtual models scanned in October 2013 will be indefinitely available through any augmented reality viewing device, regardless of what is built or destroyed in their place. Artist Danielle Siembieda leads this effort.
Judith Leinen and Robin Lasser offer an interactive, mobile installation including wall- mounted mandalas printed on metal, sculptural bike–like zoetropes (pre-film animation devices) animating portraits of Bulb residents. Lasser’s film and large scale photography also appear in the exhibition, highlighting the stories of the Bulb’s residents. Still and moving images depict creative collaborations between Lasser and the former residents as they participate in landfill fashion shows, boxing matches in the Bulb’s gladiator pit, and Tamara Robinson’s performance as Elphaba Thropp, the Wicked Witch of the West, melting at Mad Mark’s castle window.
Other exhibition highlights include excerpts from "The Atlas of the Albany Bulb," a project of the U.C. Berkeley Global Urban Humanities Initiative, generously supported by Cal Humanities and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Project director Susan Moffat and collaborating U.C. Berkeley students and faculty are recording the physical, visual and oral history of a place where nature and human culture collide and combine in complicated ways. This group of students of art, city planning, architecture, geography, biology, information design, and contemporary archaeology has worked with Bulb residents to create maps, videos, and self-narrated slideshows that reflect their intimate knowledge of the Bulb.
Barbara Boissevain exhibits two inkjet prints on mylar that illuminate two millennia of the Bulb’s history in terms of biodiversity and surrounding tidal systems. The work interrogates the human occupation of the bulb and surrounding shoreline, and invites discourse regarding how humans and various plant and animal species may coexist in balance at the Bulb in the future.
The opening event on Thursday, February 12, 6pm to 9pm, features three film screenings, informal chats with former Albany bulb residents, participating artists, and other experts about the Bulb, and curbside tours of the LavaMae bus, a project of the Tides Center that provides mobile showers for the homeless in re-purposed San Francisco Municipal Railway (MUNI) buses. For film descriptions and screening times, visit http://www.somarts.org/refugeopens.
Artist Greg Kloehn, who has now given away more than 20 mobile homes to Bay Area homeless residents, leads a free to attend workshop on how to build small homes from reclaimed, dumpstered materials. Inspired by the homeless encampments near his studio in West Oakland, each home has a footprint of approximately 3 ft. x 7 ft. Following the free to attend workshop on Saturday, February 21, 11am to 5pm, the mobile home built at SOMArts will be donated to a homeless resident of San Francisco.
Accompanying events at the Albany Bulb include Art Was Here: Augmented Reality Tour of Albany Bulb, Saturday February 28, 1pm to 3pm, and Adopt a Sign at the Albany Bulb, an artist-led participatory intervention, Saturday, April 25, 1pm to 3pm, that publicly records the stories of the former residents.
CALENDAR LISTINGS The exhibition and all related events take place at SOMArts Cultural Center, 934 Brannan St. (between 8th & 9th Streets), San Francisco, CA, 94103, unless otherwise noted. SOMArts is wheelchair/ADA accessible.
Refuge in Refuse: Homesteading Art and Culture Project group exhibition Exhibition on view February 12–March 14, 2015. Free admission during gallery hours: Tuesday–Friday, 12–7pm and Saturday, 12–5pm. Group exhibition explores the intersections of architecture, art, ecology and community at the Albany Bulb More info: http://www.somarts.org/refugeinrefuse
Refuge in Refuse Opening Event Thursday, February 12, 6–9pm. Free admission. Visual art opening features 3 film screenings beginning at 6pm, 7pm and 8pm, and informal chats with former Albany bulb residents, participating artists, and other experts about the Bulb, and curbside tours of LavaMae’s mobile showers for the homeless in re-purposed MUNI buses. More info: http://www.somarts.org/refugeopens
Workshop: Building Mobile Shelters Saturday, February 21, 11am–5pm. Free admission. Artist Greg Kloehn guides practical instruction about how to build a small mobile home from reclaimed and dumpstered materials. More info: http://www.somarts.org/mobileshelters RSVP: https://mobileshelters.eventbrite.com
Art Was Here: Augmented Reality Tour of Albany Bulb Saturday, February 28, 1pm–3pm. Free with RSVP. Meets at the Albany Bulb, 1 Buchanan Street, Albany California at the parking lot entrance near bird sculptures. Bring your charged phone or tablet. Refuge in Refuse organizers lead a walking tour of the creations, realities and archives of the Albany Bulb. Learn about the history of the art & community that once flourished at the Bulb. More info: http://www.somarts.org/artwashere RSVP: http://artwashere.eventbrite.com
Adopt a Sign at the Albany Bulb Saturday, April 25, 1pm–3pm. Free with RSVP. Meets at the Albany Bulb, 1 Buchanan Street, Albany California at the parking lot entrance near bird sculptures. Bring your charged phone or tablet. On the 1-year anniversary of the eviction of the residents of the Albany Bulb, adopt one of many artist-created park signs that tells the story of a former resident and participate in an interventionist artwork by installing the signs at former campsites. More info: http://www.somarts.org/adoptasign RSVP: http://adoptasign.eventbrite.com
Exhibiting: April Anthony James Lee Bailey Barbara Boissevain Danielle Evans Randi Johnson (with Berkeley Landscape Architecture students: Karly Ann Behncke, Emanuel Oliver Gonzales, Sara Harmon, Jonathan Marc Heyneman Hallet, Penelope Louise Leggett, Wenjie Yang and Ruyang "Ivy" Xie) Greg Kloehn Andy Kreamer (with Katherine Cody, Jimbow the Hobow, Phyl Lewis, Chester Mounten and Amber Whitson) Robin Lasser Judith Leinen Tomas McCabe Susan Moffat and Laurie Wilke (with U.C. Berkeley, San Jose State University and Sonoma State students: Wolfgang Alders, Thomas Banghart, Heather Bromfield, Christina Carolus, Mario Castillo, Ann Danis, Kat Eichner, Albert Gonzales, Wolfgang Alders Daniel Gonzales, Christina Gossman, Mike Grone, Leah Humphreys, Naphtalie Jeanty, Katie Kinkopf, Kushal Lachhwani, Sandra Lee, Christina Lew, Lisa Lomitola, Scott Lyons, Lana Salman,Tori Sandsor, Alyssa Scott, Allison Sherdeon, Julia Tierney, Trent Trombley, Valerie Upp, Ashley Zaragoza; additional collaborators include: Patty Donald, Dawn Kooyumjian, Marc Mattonen, Patricia Moore, Jill Posner, Stephanie Ringstad and Tamara Robinson) Doniece Sandoval Danielle Siembieda SNIFF (Scott Hewitt, Bruce Rayburn, David Ryan, Scott “Buddy†Meadows, Osha Neumann)
ABOUT SOMARTS CULTURAL CENTER
SOMArts (South of Market Arts, Resources, Technology, and Services) was founded in 1979 and operates the South of Market Cultural Center, one of four city-owned cultural facilities in San Francisco. SOMArts supports exhibitions, performances, classes and other collaborations that serve its mission: to promote and nurture art on the community level and foster an appreciation of and respect for all cultures.
SOMArts is located at 934 Brannan Street—between 8th and 9th—within 2 blocks of 101, I-80, Muni lines and bike paths. For public information call 415-863-1414 or visit somarts.org. Stay connected by following us on Twitter, Flickr and Facebook.
The Commons Curatorial Residency Program nurtures a creative cultural environment in the Bay Area by providing space and support for exhibitions that take risks, promote cultural connectivity and learning, and instigate accessible, multifaceted participation in the arts. Selected artists and groups receive support consisting of a $3,000 grant, a month-long exhibition at SOMArts, 80+ hours of technical assistance, and help with traditional and social media outreach to connect their work with new audiences. Through this support, Bay Area artists can engage the community, expand their practice and turn vision into reality.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
SOMArts’ exhibition programs are generously supported by the San Francisco Arts Commission, The San Francisco Foundation and individual donors, and are sponsored in part by a grant from Grants for the Arts. For more information about upcoming events, space rentals and technical services, visit www.somarts.org or call 415-863-1414.
F3 & Associates, San Jose State University, and General Graphics supported Refuge in Refuse with printing discounts.
