The Riverside Art Make will produce art happenings that evoke a sense of shared community among neighbors, families, and friends who live, work, and play in the city. This year, RAM will work with a handful of artists who have been working closely with Riverside neighborhoods to deepen relationships between RAM and the community. There will also be a call for new artist proposals for social practice, participatory art, and other innovative community engagement projects that will invite participants from the community to make art and build community. The Riverside Art Make will focus this year on art approaches that address creative ways to take in and present stories and histories from the community. RAM will also explore opportunities to build community in low-density suburban neighborhoods. The Riverside Art Make will also collaborate occasionally with the City of Riverside’s “Neighborfest,” a grassroots project that is focused on connecting people from all of Riverside’s neighborhoods to create a neighborhood-led strategy for Riverside neighborhoods. The Riverside Art Make will be coming to a neighborhood near you starting in October.
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In its second year, the Riverside Art Make has created a strong presence in Riverside neighborhoods. Supported by a generous grant from the James Irvine Foundation Exploring Engagement Fund for Priority Regions and a City of Riverside Arts and Culture Grant, the Riverside Art Make is a groundbreaking program that engaged the Riverside community in a flurry of art-making happenings throughout the city in 2014 and in 2015. RAM identified four neighborhoods that have been underserved by the museum to serve as sites for Riverside Art Make happenings: La Sierra, Magnolia, Eastside, and the Orangecrest/Mission Grove neighborhoods. This year, the Riverside Art Make also created several common-ground, art-making events in other neighborhoods in order to bridge those areas and to invest in new neighborhoods. All programming took place in non-traditional venues – a farmers’ market, public parks, educational institutions, and festivals. The Riverside Art Museum joins prestigious museums across the world in the forward-thinking trend toward engaged museum experiences. Through recent explorations in civic engagement, RAM is helping to lead the way to ever more innovative, sophisticated art experiences in the City of Arts and Innovation.
Riverside Art Make happenings were free and designed to engage participants of all ages and ethnicities, from all cultures, and regardless of economic backgrounds in a wide range of art-making activities. The idea for art happenings stems from art historical happenings that are part performance and part improvisation, and driven by audience participation and aspects of everyday life. Happenings open up opportunities for community interaction and confront conventional notions of art. At Riverside Art Make happenings, participants not only learned to make art to take home, they collaborated to create community art pieces. They discovered alternative ways of perceiving art and explored social and art-making circles within the community, helping RAM stake out new terrain for museum-goers. The Riverside Art Make endeavored to foster new, long-lasting relationships with Riverside neighborhoods and to get residents excited about visiting the Riverside Art Museum.
Last year, the Riverside Art Make sought to engage the community by tapping into the art that Riverside residents are already making at home through craft and artistry in the everyday: a community-made yarn mural, a paper quilt, kite making. By breaking down preconceived notions of art and by introducing myriad possible interpretations of art, the Riverside Art Make endeavored to empower community members to consider their private creative endeavors as part of a collective of art makers and as contemporary producers of culture. This year, the Riverside Art Make considered how creativity spills out into public space, how community circles might be expanded, and how the community might artfully engage the spaces just outside our front doors. The Riverside Art Make also explored innovative ways to take in and exhibit community stories and to contemplate how to create community in Riverside’s more suburban neighborhoods. This year, the Riverside Art Make endeavored to invest in neighborhoods for longer periods of time through artists-in-residence programming. Some artists continued their work several times in neighborhoods in order to create deeper relationships with the community.
In the spirit of community engagement, Riverside Art Make projects engaged an emergent social art practice. Social art is largely collaborative and offers a forum for art makers to express shared interests, to focus on social or community issues, or to engage public space in their city or neighborhood. The Riverside Art Make sought to build community by deploying the practice of social art, by spotlighting some of Riverside’s community circles, and by focusing on the participatory role of the community. This year’s cycle of work includes notions of social and living sculpture through planting, a human-powered paper-making machine, co-created murals, participatory street art, interactive filmmaking, collaborative printmaking and fort making, and a community piñata. All of the Riverside Art Make happenings are rooted in immersive participation, where art making becomes a shared space for all and where everyone is an artist.
The Riverside Art Museum strived to collaborate with a variety of neighborhood stakeholders in developing Riverside Art Make projects, and a number of local educational institutions and community organizations were engaged, including: the University of California, Riverside; Riverside City College; the University of Redlands; California State University, San Bernardino; La Sierra University; Community Path of Life; Homeboy Industries; Johnny Martin Sotelo Youth Opportunity Center; California Native Plant Society; Riverside Parks and Recreation; and Eastside Community Garden. Riverside Art Make artists are mostly local artists, but also include international and LA-based artists – and the Riverside Art Make would not have been possible without the talent and creativity of these individuals. We are indeed fortunate to have collaborated with so many talented visionaries.
Make art. Make community.
Friday, October 3, 2014, 12:00 noon – 4:00 p.m.
Riverside Art Museum, 3425 Mission Inn Ave., 92501
Bridging Homeboy Industries: Fabian Debora, Alex Kizu, and Juan Carlos Munoz Hernandez: Community Mural
The Riverside Art Make is kicking things off on Friday, October 3, with Fabian Debora, Alex Kizu, and Juan Carlos Munoz Hernandez, and participants from Path of Life Ministries Family Shelter, who will create a new community mural at RAM which will be donated to Path of Life. Also on view will be photographs documenting a collaborative mural created by CSUSB Community-based Art Program students and California Institute for Men inmates, taken by Andrew K. Thompson, CSUSB MFA candidate and prison art program intern. This photo exhibition is held in conjunction with Bridging Homeboy Industries: Fabian Debora, Alex Kizu, and Juan Carlos Munoz Hernandez, on view at RAFFMA from October 6 – January 31. Bridging Homeboy Industries originated at Otis College of Art and Design and is curated by Annie Buckley, artist/writer and faculty member at CSUSB.
Come watch the artists and the Path of Life participants create the community mural at RAM on October 3, from 12:00 noon – 4:00 p.m.
The community mural with Path of Life is a great opportunity for artists and the community to get a sneak peek of the Riverside Art Make programming that will be unrolling this year from October 2014 to May 2015.
The pop-up photo exhibit of the collaborative prison mural is the result of a series of connections and a gradual building up of trust between institutions and individuals and between teachers, students, and artists, both on CSUSB’s campus and in the prison. It is part of a program that began as a pilot in March 2013 with eight CSUSB art students facilitating four classes in teams of two at the prison. Since then, student-led teams have taught classes including painting, printmaking, and a critique and art history seminar each quarter. This spring, the program expanded to include creative writing and a collaborative mural, both at the request of the men participating in the program. Due to the students’ efforts working with the prison for a year, they were given permission to photograph the mural.
The community prison mural photos will be on view at the Riverside Art Museum from October 3 – October 31.
Saturday, October 18, 2014, 11:00 a.m. – 2:00 p.m.
Cesar Chavez Community Center, 2060 University Ave., 92507
Fallen Fruit: Lemonade Stand
The second Art Make happening will be on Saturday, October 18, at the Cesar Chavez Community Center. This event is a collaboration with the City of Riverside’s Neighborfest.
“Neighborfest is a project that is focused on connecting people from all of Riverside’s unique neighborhoods to create a neighborhood-led, neighborhood driven strategy for each of Riverside’s 26 neighborhoods. We want to know what you love about your neighborhood! We want to know your gifts, talents and skills and we’d love to be connectors to help utilize those gifts, talents and skills that folks are willing to share with their community to make a positive impact. Just think about all of the great things that can be done if we bring the gifts, talents and skills of your neighborhood together!”
Neighborfest is 9:00 a.m. – 3:00 p.m.
Our Art Make happening, featuring Fallen Fruit, will run from 11:00 a.m. – 2:00 p.m. (or when the organic lemons run out).
“We [Fallen Fruit] are interested in temporary community and new forms of public. In exchange for drawing a self-portrait onto a lemon, each participant receives a glass of organic lemonade. Collectively, the lemon self-portraits create a new form of public that illustrate some of the archetypes that construct community. Hand-drawn expressions illustrate joy and innocence as well as wisdom and age. A microphone installed at the stand records real-time story telling. Story telling prompts such as: Describe the “best” day in your life? Or the opposite: In life sometimes there are days of profound difficulty and how did this moment change the way you see yourself? The Lemonade Stand activates the phrase… “when life gives you lemons…” ”
Click here to see photos from some past Fallen Fruit “Lemonade Stands”.
About Fallen Fruit
Fallen Fruit is a collaborative art project that uses fruit as a common denominator to transform the way we imagine the world. Fallen Fruit began in Los Angeles in 2004 with mapping “public fruit” – fruit that grows on or over public property. Our projects include diverse site-specific artworks that embrace public participation. Fallen Fruit’s artworks invite people to experience their city as a fruitful, generous place, inviting people to engage in sharing and collectively explore the meaning of community and collaboration through temporary communities and exhibition programs. Our work focuses on urban space, neighborhood, located citizenship and community in relation to fruit. Share your fruit! Change the world! Fallen Fruit was originally conceived by David Burns, Matias Viegener and Austin Young. Since 2013, David and Austin have continued the collaborative work. Fallen Fruit uses fruit as a common denominator to change the way you see the world.
Biography – David Burns
David Burns in a life-long Californian and native of Los Angeles. He earned an MFA in Studio Art from UC Irvine and a BFA from California Institute of the Arts. David is a co-founder of Fallen Fruit, a contemporary art collective that uses fruit as a material for creating art projects that investigate the boundaries of public spaces, including urban geographies, historical archives and time-based media. Prior to his work with Fallen Fruit, David was core faculty in two programs at CalArts from 1994 to 2008. David’s curatorial practice investigates narrative structures in contemporary art with notable exhibitions for the journal Leonardo at MIT; the Armory Center for the Arts and Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions. Currently, David is faculty in the Social Practice graduate program at California College of the Arts in San Francisco. Concurrent to the development of his career in contemporary art and academics, David has also built experience in corporate branding strategy, advertising and television as a technical consultant for projects with Mercedes Benz, Discovery Channel, SEGA Gameworks and others. David’s work activates the nuances of social spaces, public archives and cultural indexes as an authentic negotiation by creating works of art that are expressions of people and place and reframe the real-world and the real-time.
Biography – Austin Young
Austin Young grew up in Reno, Nevada. He currently lives and works in Los Angeles and studied painting at Parsons in Paris, France. Early in his career, Austin transferred his interests from traditional painting and taught himself portrait photography. In many ways, Austin is more accurately described as an image-maker: his works illustrate the sublime qualities of character that make celebrated people unique. Based on a visual language of iconography, his trademark style and techniques have captured musicians, artists and celebrities including Debbie Harry, Leigh Bowery and Margaret Cho. In several series, Austin captures portraits of drag and transgendered subjects, confusing personality and identity issues in confrontational and unapologetic images of people who do not cross gender but instead split gender and socially-constructed identity. Recently, Austin’s portraiture practice has become a reality TV subject, with Austin featured as a reoccurring character on The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills and Gene Simmons Family Jewels. Austin directed and produced a feature length documentary, Hadda Brooks, This is My Life, about torch singer Hadda Brooks, and has completed production on his second feature film, a crowd-sourced musical titled TBD, a musical play and video by EVERYONE who comes. Austin is a co-founder of Fallen Fruit, a contemporary art collective that uses fruit as a material for projects that investigate the synergistic qualities of collaboration. Fallen Fruit performs works of art that are transgressive about authorship and prescribed meaning.
Saturday, October 25, 2014, 11:30 a.m. – 1:30 p.m.
Orange Terrace Community Center breezeway (next to library), 20010 Orange Terrace Parkway, 92508
Making Ground: Community Cuttings | Storytelling and the Community History of Plants | A Transplanting Workshop
Join artist Cynthia Herrera at the Orange Terrace Community Center for Community Cuttings | Storytelling and the Community History of Plants | A Transplanting Workshop.
Orange groves root on site in Riverside, and so too do hundreds of species of plants historically brought here from all over the world. From memory and culture, narratives and histories of place are cultivated through the practice and metaphor of planting. Through interaction and exchange, Making Ground is a series of planting workshops where the community can share their living histories and practices that create roots, “make ground,” and generate new stories — challenging traditional notions of space, place, ownership, and access.
As an artist, arts educator, and sociologist by training, Cynthia Herrera’s motivation lies in discussing the impact of emigration, exile, and local existing histories on the recreation of “home” and identity. A first-generation Cuban-American living in the context of Southeast Los Angeles, Herrera’s work deals with identity, intersections of culture, and the experience of exile. Her photographic projects document the embodiment of cultural transition and change in physical spaces.
Herrera is a current MFA candidate in Photography at California State University Long Beach and a 2012 GPA Fulbright-Hayes Scholar in Arabic language, arts, and culture studies at the University of Mohammad the V Rabat, Morocco. She holds double BA degrees from the University of California Irvine in Studio Art and Sociology and studied art history in the University of Burgos in Spain.
Herrera’s selected projects include: Nourish, a photographic project based around consumption and the politics of food that depicted the refrigerators of Cuba and referenced the public and private politics of food; ABER, a project that engaged youth from Doha, Qatar, Portland, and Los Angeles in a conversation about culture, identity, misconceptions and intersections; and Cross Atlantic Media Project Morocco, an on-going web–based project with youth both in Morocco and Los Angeles that was recently exhibited at the Riverside Art Museum in You Are Breathing In It.
Saturday, October 25, 2014, 11:30 a.m. – 1:30 p.m.
Orange Terrace Community Center breezeway (next to library), 20010 Orange Terrace Parkway, 92508
Making Ground: Community Cuttings | Storytelling and the Community History of Plants | A Transplanting Workshop
Join artist Cynthia Herrera at the Orange Terrace Community Center for Community Cuttings | Storytelling and the Community History of Plants | A Transplanting Workshop.
Orange groves root on site in Riverside, and so too do hundreds of species of plants historically brought here from all over the world. From memory and culture, narratives and histories of place are cultivated through the practice and metaphor of planting. Through interaction and exchange, Making Ground is a series of planting workshops where the community can share their living histories and practices that create roots, “make ground,” and generate new stories — challenging traditional notions of space, place, ownership, and access.
As an artist, arts educator, and sociologist by training, Cynthia Herrera’s motivation lies in discussing the impact of emigration, exile, and local existing histories on the recreation of “home” and identity. A first-generation Cuban-American living in the context of Southeast Los Angeles, Herrera’s work deals with identity, intersections of culture, and the experience of exile. Her photographic projects document the embodiment of cultural transition and change in physical spaces.
Herrera is a current MFA candidate in Photography at California State University Long Beach and a 2012 GPA Fulbright-Hayes Scholar in Arabic language, arts, and culture studies at the University of Mohammad the V Rabat, Morocco. She holds double BA degrees from the University of California Irvine in Studio Art and Sociology and studied art history in the University of Burgos in Spain.
Herrera’s selected projects include: Nourish, a photographic project based around consumption and the politics of food that depicted the refrigerators of Cuba and referenced the public and private politics of food; ABER, a project that engaged youth from Doha, Qatar, Portland, and Los Angeles in a conversation about culture, identity, misconceptions and intersections; and Cross Atlantic Media Project Morocco, an on-going web–based project with youth both in Morocco and Los Angeles that was recently exhibited at the Riverside Art Museum in You Are Breathing In It.
Friday, November 7, 2014, 4:30 p.m. – 5:30 p.m.
Johnny Martin Sotelo Youth Opportunity Center, 2060 University Ave., 92507
Eastside Memories and Futures Project: Informative Workshop
Artists will lead local young people (ages 14 – 22) from the Johnny Martin Sotelo Youth Opportunity Center in a series of workshops that will be youth-driven and will produce a soundscape and video performance on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day after the parade in Eastside. Participants will learn interview and video techniques and then speak with several older members of the neighborhood. These individuals have been selected from a list of local residents identified in discussion with our Eastside stakeholder group. This intergenerational project will generate stories from the older generation while simultaneously allowing the younger participants to explore, reflect on, and record their own experiences and thoughts.
Artist Facilitators (from the University of Redlands and Borderline Antigone):
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Alisa Slaughter is a writer and professor who has held several arts residencies, including in Morocco and Argentina. She works at the University of Redlands where she teaches courses that include projects influenced by John Cage, Fluxus, and social practice art, such as making pancakes for people waiting in line at the Department of Motor Vehicles. She has lived in the Inland Empire for 20 years and is familiar with Riverside’s neighborhoods and arts offerings.
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Marco Schindelmann is an Artist Professor at the University of Redlands, President of the Arts Council for Long Beach, and a co-curator of A LOT, the goal of which is bringing art to underserved neighborhoods. The A LOT program is supported in part by the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) Our Town grant. As a member of FLOOD, he has produced and curated the Long Beach SoundWalk, an event that for ten years has integrated sound art into the urban landscape as artists adopt sites on sidewalks, in storefronts, on parking lots, in nooks, parks, businesses, at bus stops, and in tree tops. He also has performed, presented, and published both nationally and internationally (Barcelona, Beijing, Munich, Newfoundland, Rome, Singapore, Tokyo, MIT Computer Music Journal, et. al.), and can be heard on Centaur, New World records and IMPRNTBL.
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Julia Sushytska is an artist-philosopher whose practice includes photography and video art. She has extensive experience living and working in between different cultures, languages, and ethnicities. Both her teaching and research focuses on the questions of diversity and more specifically on the idea that the strangers and outsiders to the mainstream culture are absolutely indispensable for this culture, and their own well-being is closely tied to creative engagement with this culture. She is looking forward to working with the Riverside community.
Sunday, November 9, 2014, 10:00 a.m. – 3:00 p.m.
Gloria’s Nursery, 2078 Van Buren Blvd., 92503
Making Ground: Common Ground | A Stakeholder Event
Orange groves root on site in Riverside, and so too do hundreds of species of plants historically brought here from all over the world. From memory and culture, narratives and histories of place are cultivated through the practice and metaphor of planting. Through interaction and exchange, Making Ground is a series of planting workshops where the community can share their living histories and practices that create roots, “make ground,” and generate new stories — challenging traditional notions of space, place, ownership, and access.
As an artist, arts educator, and sociologist by training, Cynthia Herrera’s motivation lies in discussing the impact of emigration, exile, and local existing histories on the recreation of “home” and identity. A first-generation Cuban-American living in the context of Southeast Los Angeles, Herrera’s work deals with identity, intersections of culture, and the experience of exile. Her photographic projects document the embodiment of cultural transition and change in physical spaces.
Herrera is a current MFA candidate in Photography at California State University Long Beach and a 2012 GPA Fulbright-Hayes Scholar in Arabic language, arts, and culture studies at the University of Mohammad the V Rabat, Morocco. She holds double BA degrees from the University of California Irvine in Studio Art and Sociology and studied art history in the University of Burgos in Spain.
Herrera’s selected projects include: Nourish, a photographic project based around consumption and the politics of food that depicted the refrigerators of Cuba and referenced the public and private politics of food; ABER, a project that engaged youth from Doha, Qatar, Portland, and Los Angeles in a conversation about culture, identity, misconceptions and intersections; and Cross Atlantic Media Project Morocco, an on-going web–based project with youth both in Morocco and Los Angeles that was recently exhibited at the Riverside Art Museum in You Are Breathing In It.
Friday, December 5, 2014, 4:30 p.m. – 5:30 p.m.
Johnny Martin Sotelo Youth Opportunity Center, 2060 University Ave., 92507
Eastside Memories and Futures Project: Storytelling with Elders and Video Workshop
Artists will lead local young people (ages 14 – 22) from the Johnny Martin Sotelo Youth Opportunity Center in a series of workshops that will be youth-driven and will produce a soundscape and video performance on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day after the parade in Eastside. Participants will learn interview and video techniques and then speak with several older members of the neighborhood. These individuals have been selected from a list of local residents identified in discussion with our Eastside stakeholder group. This intergenerational project will generate stories from the older generation while simultaneously allowing the younger participants to explore, reflect on, and record their own experiences and thoughts.
Artist Facilitators (from the University of Redlands and Borderline Antigone):
-
Alisa Slaughter is a writer and professor who has held several arts residencies, including in Morocco and Argentina. She works at the University of Redlands where she teaches courses that include projects influenced by John Cage, Fluxus, and social practice art, such as making pancakes for people waiting in line at the Department of Motor Vehicles. She has lived in the Inland Empire for 20 years and is familiar with Riverside’s neighborhoods and arts offerings.
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Marco Schindelmann is an Artist Professor at the University of Redlands, President of the Arts Council for Long Beach, and a co-curator of A LOT, the goal of which is bringing art to underserved neighborhoods. The A LOT program is supported in part by the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) Our Town grant. As a member of FLOOD, he has produced and curated the Long Beach SoundWalk, an event that for ten years has integrated sound art into the urban landscape as artists adopt sites on sidewalks, in storefronts, on parking lots, in nooks, parks, businesses, at bus stops, and in tree tops. He also has performed, presented, and published both nationally and internationally (Barcelona, Beijing, Munich, Newfoundland, Rome, Singapore, Tokyo, MIT Computer Music Journal, et. al.), and can be heard on Centaur, New World records and IMPRNTBL.
-
Julia Sushytska is an artist-philosopher whose practice includes photography and video art. She has extensive experience living and working in between different cultures, languages, and ethnicities. Both her teaching and research focuses on the questions of diversity and more specifically on the idea that the strangers and outsiders to the mainstream culture are absolutely indispensable for this culture, and their own well-being is closely tied to creative engagement with this culture. She is looking forward to working with the Riverside community.
Friday, January 9, 2015, 4:30 p.m. – 5:30 p.m.
Johnny Martin Sotelo Youth Opportunity Center, 2060 University Ave., 92507
Eastside Memories and Futures Project: Storytelling with Elders and Video Workshop
Artists will lead local young people (ages 14 – 22) from the Johnny Martin Sotelo Youth Opportunity Center in a series of workshops that will be youth-driven and will produce a soundscape and video performance on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day after the parade in Eastside. Participants will learn interview and video techniques and then speak with several older members of the neighborhood. These individuals have been selected from a list of local residents identified in discussion with our Eastside stakeholder group. This intergenerational project will generate stories from the older generation while simultaneously allowing the younger participants to explore, reflect on, and record their own experiences and thoughts.
Artist Facilitators (from the University of Redlands and Borderline Antigone):
-
Alisa Slaughter is a writer and professor who has held several arts residencies, including in Morocco and Argentina. She works at the University of Redlands where she teaches courses that include projects influenced by John Cage, Fluxus, and social practice art, such as making pancakes for people waiting in line at the Department of Motor Vehicles. She has lived in the Inland Empire for 20 years and is familiar with Riverside’s neighborhoods and arts offerings.
-
Marco Schindelmann is an Artist Professor at the University of Redlands, President of the Arts Council for Long Beach, and a co-curator of A LOT, the goal of which is bringing art to underserved neighborhoods. The A LOT program is supported in part by the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) Our Town grant. As a member of FLOOD, he has produced and curated the Long Beach SoundWalk, an event that for ten years has integrated sound art into the urban landscape as artists adopt sites on sidewalks, in storefronts, on parking lots, in nooks, parks, businesses, at bus stops, and in tree tops. He also has performed, presented, and published both nationally and internationally (Barcelona, Beijing, Munich, Newfoundland, Rome, Singapore, Tokyo, MIT Computer Music Journal, et. al.), and can be heard on Centaur, New World records and IMPRNTBL.
-
Julia Sushytska is an artist-philosopher whose practice includes photography and video art. She has extensive experience living and working in between different cultures, languages, and ethnicities. Both her teaching and research focuses on the questions of diversity and more specifically on the idea that the strangers and outsiders to the mainstream culture are absolutely indispensable for this culture, and their own well-being is closely tied to creative engagement with this culture. She is looking forward to working with the Riverside community.
Sunday, January 25, 2015, 11:00 a.m. – 2:00 p.m.
La Sierra University’s Zapara School of Business, 4500 Riverwalk Parkway, 92505
Join the Riverside Art Museum for another exciting Riverside Art Make happening on Sunday, January 25, 2015, at La Sierra University’s Zapara School of Business from 11:00 a.m. – 2:00 p.m.
Candy Chang’s Before I Die is an interactive public art project that invites people to share their personal aspirations in public space. After losing someone she loved and falling into depression, Chang created this experiment on an abandoned house in her neighborhood to create an anonymous place to help restore perspective and share intimately with her neighbors while remaining an introvert. Meant as a singular experiment, the project gained global attention and thanks to passionate people around the world, over 500 Before I Die walls have been created in over 70 countries, including Kazakhstan, Iraq, Haiti, China, Ukraine, Portugal, Japan, Denmark, Argentina, and South Africa. Join the Riverside Art Museum in this latest iteration of Chang’s compelling public art intervention and share your dreams and goals.
Candy Chang biography:
Taiwanese-American artist Candy Chang challenges the conventional perception of public space and the role it can play to help us make sense of our communities and ourselves. Renowned for interactive public installations that provoke civic engagement and emotional introspection, her work has examined issues from criminal justice and the future of vacant buildings to personal aspirations and anxieties. Projects include a fable in an abandoned apartment, a confessional sanctuary in a Las Vegas casino, a vacant high-rise pleading for love, and a public wall for personal aspirations. For more information on the origins of the Before I Die project, visit: https://www.ted.com/talks/candy_chang_before_i_die_i_want_to
This Riverside Art Make happening will share space with the City of Riverside’s Neighbor Fest. Neighbor Fest is a chance for the broader La Sierra neighborhoods to connect with ways to be involved in the community. Neighbor Fest is an opportunity to discover and celebrate what you love about where you live. This is a free event for all community members. The event will include activities for all ages and music by local artists. Come celebrate your neighborhoods and learn how to connect with neighbors, discover neighborhood treasures, and create the neighborhood of your dreams.
Our Riverside Art Make happening, featuring Candy Chang’s Before I Die, will run from 11:00 a.m. – 2:00 p.m., however, Neighbor Fest runs from 11:00 a.m. – 4:00 p.m.
Make art. Make community.
Monday, January 26, and Wednesday, January 28, 2015
La Sierra University, 4500 Riverwalk Parkway, 92505
Cindy Rinne: Stars Rising
UPDATE: The collaborative sculpture will be on view at the Humanities Building at La Sierra University February 9 – June 11, 2015. The sculpture will then be on display at the Women’s Resource Center (11498 Pierce St., Suite AA 2nd Floor, 92505 – Monday – Thursday, 9:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m.) June 15 – August 27, 2015. The LSU Global Studies students will perform their collaborative poem at RAM in July.
Stars Rising, facilitated by Cindy Rinne in a brief artist residency, is a participatory art installation of fabric-collage and a community poem co-created with La Sierra University Global Studies students in January. LSU students will weave their own stories into this textile public sculpture for later exhibition at the LSU Women’s Resource Center. Students will contribute fragments of culture and personal stories for a collaborative poem that will be performed on site. Each participant will also create a smaller fabric collage of recycled fabric scraps to give as a gift to a friend or family member to further encourage community and sharing.
Artist Bio:
Cindy Rinne has created fine art for over 35 years. She started creating art quilts over 25 years ago. She paints and draws with thread using fabrics from around the world. Cindy writes original poetry that often appears as a part or with the artwork. Her work emphasizes using fiber and stitch, constructed into collage. She repurposes vintage fabrics, laces, and buttons as textures. Cindy taught a collage workshop at the University of Redlands, a family workshop series for the City of Fontana, and was a poetry editor as a guest from the community to work with the students at Crafton Hills College to produce the literary magazine, “The Sand Canyon Review.” For several years, she taught art quilting workshops all over the state of California to quilt guilds. Cindy taught the “Words of Life” workshop at the First Presbyterian Church, San Bernardino, CA (2011), the “Raven Observes the World” workshop, San Bernardino County Museum, Redlands, CA (2012), and a Visual Poetry workshop at Trapp Elementary School, Rialto, CA (2012). In 2015, she will be published in “UPPERCASE” magazine. Her first poetry book with Michael Cooper, “Speaking Through Sediment”, will be published by ELJ Publications. Cindy will be in the four-person exhibit, “Hand Work,” at Groundspace Project Gallery, LA, CA. She will curate “rebirth of dialects,” a five-person show, at Chaffey Community Museum of Art, Ontario, CA. She will also read poetry at the first “Native Voices Poetry Festival” at the Dorothy Ramon Learning Center, Banning, CA.
Sunday, February 15, 2015, 9:00 a.m. – 12:00 noon
Galleria at Tyler Farmers’ Market, 1299 Galleria at Tyler, 92503
Beating Invasives: Bicycle-Powered Papermaking and Plant Tagging
Join social artist Danielle Giudici Wallis as she takes on invasive horticultural species with her engineering genius. Riverside makers, tinkerers, gardeners, bike lovers, and all! Come identify invasive plants, cut them up, and beat them to a “pulp”! The processed pulp will then be made into paper using Danielle’s hand-built, bicycle-powered, papermaking machine. Participants will make their own paper and get to use a tabletop letterpress to propagate the PLANT RIGHT message.
Join us for a cup of Molinos’ coffee and a little human-powered artmaking fun!
Make art. Make community.
This Art Make happening is sponsored in part by:
Saturday, February 21, 2015, 12:00 noon – 3:00 p.m.
Lincoln Park, 4261 Park Ave., 92507
Fallen Fruit: Urban Fruit Trails
The Riverside Art Museum (RAM) is pleased to announce an exciting new Riverside Art Make public participatory project! RAM is bringing Los Angeles–based, internationally-acclaimed art collaborative Fallen Fruit (David Allen Burns and Austin Young) back to Riverside! Fallen Fruit produces community-based projects that use fruit as a medium to explore social engagement. Last fall, Fallen Fruit went to the Eastside for the Riverside Art Make, where they presented their “Lemonade Stand.” In exchange for drawing a self-portrait onto a lemon, each participant received a glass of organic lemonade. See the community’s portraits by Fallen Fruit here.
On Saturday, February 21, 2015, from 12:00 noon – 3:00 p.m., at Lincoln Park in Eastside, Fallen Fruit will work with RAM and residents to install the first “Urban Fruit Trail” in Riverside! We will plant 12 trees in Lincoln Park and extend the trail throughout the neighborhood with your participation and help. If you (or your neighbor) have a sunny space along a sidewalk where you can water regularly, contact us at info@fallenfruit.org and help us create an Urban Fruit Trail. It is free to participate.
Becoming part of the Urban Fruit Trail is easy:
1. You have space along sidewalks and fences on private property – a home, local business, or apartment building.
2. The space is sunny and is already being watered or can be watered regularly.
3. You agree to share the fruit tree with neighbors and passersby and be part of the Urban Fruit Trail.
Each recipient signs an agreement promising to care for the tree and share the fruit with others. If where you live has room for more than one fruit tree and you can care for them, let us know! If you don’t have space for a tree, come help us plant fruit trees in the Eastside neighborhood!
Please understand that these are bare root fruit trees and must be planted the same day as the event (if possible, we will help you). All of these fruit trees will become part of a network of Urban Fruit Trails and our upcoming public artwork with Creative Capital: Endless Orchard.
For more information on Urban Fruit Trails by Fallen Fruit:
http://fallenfruit.org/news/urban-fruit-trails-ram/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OLj3NPivxIo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=byvLy-Vk4tM
http://www.kcet.org/arts/artbound/counties/los-angeles/del-aire-fruit-park.html
About Fallen Fruit
Fallen Fruit is a collaborative art project that uses fruit as a common denominator to transform the way we imagine the world. Fallen Fruit began in Los Angeles in 2004 with mapping “public fruit” – fruit that grows on or
over public property. Our projects include diverse site-specific artworks that embrace public participation. Fallen Fruit’s artworks invite people to experience their city as a fruitful, generous place, inviting people to engage in sharing and collectively explore the meaning of community and collaboration through temporary communities and exhibition programs. Our work focuses on urban space, neighborhood, located citizenship and community in relation to fruit. Share your fruit! Change the world! Fallen Fruit was originally conceived by David Burns, Matias Viegener and Austin Young. Since 2013, David and Austin have continued the collaborative work. Fallen Fruit uses fruit as a common denominator to change the way you see the world.
Biography – David Allen Burns
David Allen Burns in a life-long Californian and native of Los Angeles. He earned an MFA in Studio Art from UC Irvine and a BFA from California Institute of the Arts. David is a co-founder of Fallen Fruit, a contemporary art collective that uses fruit as a material for creating art projects that investigate the boundaries of public spaces, including urban geographies, historical archives and time-based media. Prior to his work with Fallen Fruit, David was core faculty in two programs at CalArts from 1994 to 2008. David’s curatorial practice investigates narrative structures in contemporary art with notable exhibitions for the journal Leonardo at MIT; the Armory Center for the Arts and Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions. Currently, David is faculty in the Social Practice graduate program at California College of the Arts in San Francisco. Concurrent to the development of his career in contemporary art and academics, David has also built experience in corporate branding strategy, advertising and television as a technical consultant for projects with Mercedes Benz, Discovery Channel, SEGA Gameworks and others. David’s work activates the nuances of social spaces, public archives and cultural indexes as an authentic negotiation by creating works of art that are expressions of people and place and reframe the real-world and the real-time.
Biography – Austin Young
Austin Young grew up in Reno, Nevada. He currently lives and works in Los Angeles and studied painting at Parsons in Paris, France. Early in his career, Austin transferred his interests from traditional painting and taught himself portrait photography. In many ways, Austin is more accurately described as an image-maker: his works illustrate the sublime qualities of character that make celebrated people unique. Based on a visual language of iconography, his trademark style and techniques have captured musicians, artists and celebrities including Debbie Harry, Leigh Bowery and Margaret Cho. In several series, Austin captures portraits of drag and transgendered subjects, confusing personality and identity issues in confrontational and unapologetic images of people who do not cross gender but instead split gender and socially-constructed identity. Recently, Austin’s portraiture practice has become a reality TV subject, with Austin featured as a reoccurring character on The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills and Gene Simmons Family Jewels. Austin directed and produced a feature length documentary, Hadda Brooks, This is My Life, about torch singer Hadda Brooks, and has completed production on his second feature film, a crowd-sourced musical titled TBD, a musical play and video by EVERYONE who comes. Austin is a co-founder of Fallen Fruit, a contemporary art collective that uses fruit as a material for projects that investigate the synergistic qualities of collaboration. Fallen Fruit performs works of art that are transgressive about authorship and prescribed meaning.
Saturday, March 28, 10:00 a.m. – 2:00 p.m.
Eastside Health Fair & Egg Hunt at the Cesar Chavez Community Center, 2060 University Ave., 92507
One Word: Eastside Memories and Futures Interactive Film Exhibit with Borderline Antigone
Join artist collaborative Borderline Antigone for an afternoon of stories, film, and magnet making fun! Artists Alisa Slaughter, Marco Schindelmann, and Julia Sushytska worked in residency at the Johnny Martin Sotelo Youth Opportunity Center with Eastside youth, historic leaders, and activists to produce an interactive film exhibit. The words from those stories will form an interactive storyboard where visitors can craft new tales. Borderline Antigone will also lead participants in finding that one beautiful word that inspires, defines, and elicits dreams.Visitors are invited to tell the story of that one word in a video “photo booth” and make a refrigerator magnet to take home. Find us at the Eastside Health Fair next to the bounce houses. Jump, create, and discover how one word can shape your memories and futures. If the whole world contributes one word, there will be a story for the ages.
Biography for Borderline Antigone:
Alisa Slaughter is a writer and professor who has held several arts residencies, including in Morocco and Argentina. She works at the University of Redlands where she teaches courses that include projects influenced by John Cage, Fluxus, and social practice art, such as making pancakes for people waiting in line at the Department of Motor Vehicles. She has lived in the Inland Empire for 20 years and is familiar with Riverside’s neighborhoods and arts offerings.
Marco Schindelmann is an Artist Professor at the University of Redlands, President of the Arts Council for Long Beach, and a co-curator of A LOT, the goal of which is bringing art to underserved neighborhoods. The A LOT program is supported in part by the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) Our Town grant. As a member of FLOOD, he has produced and curated the Long Beach SoundWalk, an event that for ten years has integrated sound art into the urban landscape as artists adopt sites on sidewalks, in storefronts, on parking lots, in nooks, parks, businesses, at bus stops, and in tree tops. He also has performed, presented, and published both nationally and internationally (Barcelona, Beijing, Munich, Newfoundland, Rome, Singapore, Tokyo, MIT Computer Music Journal, et. al.), and can be heard on Centaur, New World records and IMPRNTBL.
Julia Sushytska is an artist-philosopher whose practice includes photography and video art. She has extensive experience living and working in between different cultures, languages, and ethnicities. Both her teaching and research focuses on the questions of diversity and more specifically on the idea that the strangers and outsiders to the mainstream culture are absolutely indispensable for this culture, and their own well-being is closely tied to creative engagement with this culture. She is looking forward to working with the Riverside community.
Saturday, April 4, 2015, 10:00 a.m. – 1:00 p.m.
Orange Terrace Park, 20010 Orange Terrace Parkway, 92508
An Ideal Flag: (sub)urban mosaic with Shane A. (blueblackred)
“Within a neighborhood are people with various backgrounds, beliefs, and skills; understanding — both philosophically and visually — how the various components come together peacefully leads to a stronger community. Providing simple tools to create a cohesive work, made up of various individual works which must then be organized into one cohesive whole, this project asks us to contemplate how we work together…to make a beautiful whole.” — Shane A.
Join artist Shane A. of blueblackred and learn how to work with spray paint, markers, stencils, and text to create a graffiti, street-art inspired individual piece that will comprise a kind of community flag. On each painted board participants will explore what neighborhood means to them. This community-created art piece will be designed by participants and will be on view during the summer exhibition for Riverside Art Make at the Riverside Art Museum.
Biography:
The studio of blueblackred (Shane A.) comprises the artistic development of a single man; one well versed in the purest philosophies defining surrealism and expressionism – in concert with the philosophical psychology of Buddhism. In his work is found extremes; mixing ideas of pop art, street art, and classic abstract expressionism.
While no longer taking up space in the Inland Empire, he recalls many years of Saturday nights at Castle Park and the notorious, and sadly defunct, Spanky’s Café — good times that have deep influence on the work he creates today.
Sunday, April 12, 2015, 9:00 a.m. – 12:00 noon
Galleria at Tyler Farmers’ Market, 1299 Galleria at Tyler, 92503
Making Ground: Living Sculpture
Orange groves root on site in Riverside, and so too do hundreds of species of plants historically brought here from all over the world. From memory and culture, narratives and histories of place are cultivated through the practice and metaphor of planting. Through interaction and exchange, Making Ground is a series of planting workshops where the community can share their living histories and practices that create roots, “make ground,” and generate new stories — challenging traditional notions of space, place, ownership, and access.
As an artist, arts educator, and sociologist by training, Cynthia Herrera’s motivation lies in discussing the impact of emigration, exile, and local existing histories on the recreation of “home” and identity. A first-generation Cuban-American living in the context of Southeast Los Angeles, Herrera’s work deals with identity, intersections of culture, and the experience of exile. Her photographic projects document the embodiment of cultural transition and change in physical spaces.
Herrera is a current MFA candidate in Photography at California State University Long Beach and a 2012 GPA Fulbright-Hayes Scholar in Arabic language, arts, and culture studies at the University of Mohammad the V Rabat, Morocco. She holds double BA degrees from the University of California Irvine in Studio Art and Sociology and studied art history in the University of Burgos in Spain.
Herrera’s selected projects include: Nourish, a photographic project based around consumption and the politics of food that depicted the refrigerators of Cuba and referenced the public and private politics of food; ABER, a project that engaged youth from Doha, Qatar, Portland, and Los Angeles in a conversation about culture, identity, misconceptions and intersections; and Cross Atlantic Media Project Morocco, an on-going web–based project with youth both in Morocco and Los Angeles that was recently exhibited at the Riverside Art Museum in You Are Breathing In It.
Saturday, April 18, 2015, 10:00 a.m. – 1:00 p.m.
Orange Terrace Park, 20010 Orange Terrace Parkway, 92508
The Big Tree Painting with Jeff Soto
Join international artist and local legend Jeff Soto and help create the Big Tree Painting! Participants will paint wood blocks that make up the Big Tree in Jeff’s signature edgy style. This participatory painting will be on exhibition this summer at RAM. After the museum show, visitors can come collect their individual pieces and take them home! Join us for this unique opportunity to make an community painting with Jeff Soto! This project was made possible in part by Prints On Wood.
Biography:
Jeff Soto is an artist, illustrator and muralist who has exhibited in galleries and museums around the world. The artist’s distinct color palette, subject matter, and technique resonate with a growing audience and bridges the gap between Pop Surrealism and graffiti. Inspired by youthful nostalgia, nature, graffiti, hip-hop, and popular culture, his bold, representational work is simultaneously accessible and stimulating. In 2002, Soto graduated with Distinction from Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California. Soto was born and raised in Southern California, where he currently resides with his wife and two daughter.
Saturday, May 2, 2015, 1:00 p.m. – 5:00 p.m.
Riverside Ballet Arts/Platt College, 6465 Sycamore Canyon Rd., Suite 200, 92507
Interface: A Stakeholder Event
Dance and graphic design come together in this stakeholder event, a collaboration with Riverside Ballet Arts, BRAVA’s WORKS program, and Platt College’s graphic designers. In Riverside’s Sycamore Canyon Springs neighborhood, participants will be invited to tell us where the heart of the arts is in Riverside and where they would like to see more art in their neighborhood. Join us for an engaged cut-and-paste art-making session that answers the question: How do we create art in our suburban spaces? Sit in on open discussions about the role of graphic design and dance in the museum. Work from Platt College students will be on display during this event. BRAVA’s WORKS Program, an evening of dance by numerous talented choreographers will follow. For more information on these talented choreographers, contact brava-arts.org.
Artists-in-residence: Thursdays, April 16, 23, and 30, 2015, 6:30 p.m. – 8:30 p.m.
Community Printmaking: Sunday, May 3, 2015, 12:00 noon – 3:00 p.m., during Casa Blanca’s Cinco de Mayo Festival
Ysmael Villegas Community Center, 3091 Esperanza Street, 92504
Tequio Print Community with Pavel Acevedo, Elliot Fong, & Miguel Flores
Tequio means “collective work for the community” and stems from the pre-Hispanic custom in Mexico of collaborating on projects that benefit the community. In this spirit of giving back, artists Pavel Acevedo, Elliot Fong, and Miguel Flores will participate in an artist residency at the Ysmael Villegas Community Center throughout April. They will be constructing a printing press and teaching Casa Blanca residents the printmaking process. Then, on May 3, as part of the Cinco de Mayo Festival, join the artists in co-creating scenes of the neighborhood and help to construct a temporary shelter, a symbolic refuge, which will become part of the Riverside Art Make exhibition in summer 2015. Participants will work together to make prints to take and share!
Bios:
Pável Acevedo was born in Oaxaca, Mexico (1984). He currently resides and works in Riverside, California. He received a degree in Fine Arts from Universidad Autonoma Benito Juarez (Oaxaca, Mexico). He was also part of a Third Generation of Students at The Rufino Tamayo Workshop. He worked at the Taller de Grafica Actual (TAGA) and Taller la Huella Grafica (Oaxaca, Mx). Pável has exhibited in Mexico, California and Canada in a variety of galleries and cultural institutions. In Mexico these included Arte Cocodrilo, Cuarto Contemporaneo, the Museum of Oaxacan Painters, University Cultural Center (UABJO), Museo del Palacio, Museum of Huajuapan And Plan B. In California his work was exhibited in the Mountain Bar in Los Angeles and Café Con Leche in Fullerton as well The Global Clothing Gallery as part of the Santa Ana Art Walk and The Bunny Gunner Gallery and The Eve Galley as part of the Pomona Art Walk. He also had a solo exhibit in 2013 “OaxaCalifornia” which traveled to Cultural Space “La Chicatana” in Oaxaca city in 2014. In 2013 had a solo show exhibit “Dibutades” at Cuarto Contemporaneo Gallery in Oaxaca Mexico. Several of his pieces were selected for exhibition in the Federation Gallery, Vancouver, Canada as part of the VI: Biennial International Print Exhibition. His artwork is part of collections such as Juan Sandoval of El Paso Texas, Pinacoteca at the University of Benito Juarez, Oaxaca, Mexico and the Academy of Baseball Alfredo Harp Helu, also in Oaxaca.
Elliot Fong is co-publisher at Double Fur Press, a publishing project specializing in print media devoted to academic writing, travel writing, short stories, visual art, poetry, prints, and photography. He is also co-organizer of the Riverside DIY Print Fest, a free, one-day event focusing on publishing, zines, independent press, screen printing, and other forms of print art, with an emphasis on DIY ethos. Elliot is a founding collective member of Blood Orange Infoshop, a not-for-profit community-based project that focuses on art, music, and education. He is also a Coachella Art Studios Affiliate and the Collective Organizer for Zineworks, a group focusing on educating others on creating and distributing chapbooks, handmade publications and zines.
Saturday, May 16, 2015, 11:00 a.m. – 2:00 p.m.
Main Street Pedestrian Mall, 92501
Boombox: Tell Your Story to the Piñata, a Collage and Piñata-filling Workshop
Come tell your story to the piñata! Participants will be invited to use simple prompts to create a collage about the places, art, museums, histories, people, and experiences in downtown Riverside. While making their collage to take home, participants will think of a story about this unique place and write it down. Those stories will then be inserted into a boombox-shaped piñata onsite, handcrafted by piñata artist Sarah Bay Gachot. Sarah will interpret these stories inside the piñata, filling it with chocolates, treats, and toys inspired by participants’ experiences. The boombox piñata will be on exhibition in summer 2015 at the Riverside Art Museum (RAM) and will play recordings of the stories within. All participants will be invited to RAM for the piñata smashing in summer at a culmination event.
In collaboration with the City of Riverside’s Neighborfest, a grassroots projects that is focused on connecting people from all of Riverside’s neighborhoods to create a neighborhood-led strategy for Riverside.
Bio:
Sarah Bay Gachot is a writer and piñata-maker who lives in Los Angeles. Her piñatas have been destroyed at the Hammer Museum, REDCAT, Machine Project, Human Resources LA, and Pomona College, among other places. She has been making piñatas since 2006. She received her master’s degree in art history from UCR and is now working on a monograph on the artist Robert Cumming. She also teaches the history of photography at Chaffey College in Rancho Cucamonga, CA, and is the 2014 recipient of a Workshop in Art Writing from the Creative Capitol/Warhol Foundation’s Arts Writers Grant Program and the International Art Critics Association. Previously, Sarah was the Ralph M. Parsons Fellow in the Wallis Annenberg Photography Department at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. She is the keeper of Piñata Lab (pinatalab.com), a website about her piñata-making. Her piñatas have been destroyed at the Hammer Museum, REDCAT, Machine Project, Human Resources LA, and Pomona College, among other places. She has been making piñatas since 2006.
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