The Jill Watson Distinguished Lecture series at Carnegie Mellon University will present talks by internationally acclaimed designer Bruce Mau at 6:30 p.m. on Jan. 20 and artist and activist Peter Fend at 5 p.m. on Jan. 22. Also featured in the series are curators Dana Greenwald and Josh MacPhee, appearing at 4:30 p.m. on Jan. 23 in conjunction with the opening of their exhibition "Signs of Change: Social Movement Cultures 1960s to Now" at the Miller Gallery.
All lectures, free and open to the public, will take place in the McConomy Auditorium in the campus' University Center.
Each year The Jill Watson Endowment for Innovation at the Intersection of the Arts sponsors the effort to bring emerging and recognized artists, designers, musicians, architects and performers to Pittsburgh. The series is named in memory of Watson, a Carnegie Mellon alumna, adjunct faculty member in the School of Architecture and acclaimed Pittsburgh architect who died in the TWA Flight 800 plane crash on July 17, 1996.
Mau is the founder and creative director of Bruce Mau Design, a company that "uses the power and promise of design to create an ethical sustainable future." He is also the founder of Institute without Boundaries, a post-graduate, interdisciplinary design program. Massive Change, an ongoing collaborative project of Bruce Mau Design and the Institute without Boundaries, aims to articulate the consequences of human action on the world, to investigate the possibilities and ethical implications of design and to advocate for positive solutions. The Canadian is also a renowned lecturer and the recipient of many honors, including the Chrysler Award for Design Innovation and the Toronto Arts Award for Architecture and Design.
Fend is the founder of the Ocean Earth Development Corporation, a program bringing together artists, architects and scientists to research alternative energy sources. Their latest project, "Ocean Earth," envisions algae as a viable energy source and uses artwork to demonstrate how easily algae can be converted into methane gas.
Lecturers Greenwald and MacPhee are co-curators of the upcoming Miller Gallery exhibition "Signs of Change: Social Movement Cultures 1960s to Now," presenting hundreds of posters, photographs, moving images, audio clips and ephemera bringing to life over 40 years of international activism, political protest and campaigns for social justice.
Greenwald and MacPhee's lecture, "Visualizing Social Movement Cultures," will be followed by a reception from 6 to 8 p.m. in the Miller Gallery at Carnegie Mellon. The reception, free and open to the public, will feature live screen-printing and music by DJ Baglady.
For more information on the lecture series, visit www.cmu.edu/cfa/watson/.
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The Miller Gallery at Carnegie Mellon Presents
"Signs of Change: Social Movement Cultures 1960s to Now"
SignPITTSBURGH—The Miller Gallery at Carnegie Mellon University presents "Signs of Change: Social Movement Cultures 1960s to Now," an exhibit that features hundreds of posters, photographs, moving images, audio clips and ephemera that brings to life more than 40 years of activism, political protest and campaigns for social justice. Guest curated by Dara Greenwald and Josh MacPhee, this important and timely exhibition, which runs from Jan. 23 through March 8, surveys the creative work of dozens of international social movements.
This exhibition presents the creative outpourings of social movements, such as those for civil rights and black power in the United States; democracy in China; anti-apartheid in Africa; squatting in Europe; environmental activism and women's rights internationally; and the global AIDS crisis. It also presents uprisings and protests, such as those for indigenous control of lands, those against airport construction in Japan and in support of radical social transformation in France. The exhibition also explores the development of powerful counter-cultures that evolve beyond traditional politics and create distinct aesthetics, life-styles and social organizations.
The exhibition will debut with a curators' talk, "Visualizing Social Movement Cultures," from 4:30 to 6 p.m., Jan. 23 in McConomy Auditorium in the University Center on the Carnegie Mellon campus. The lecture will be followed by an opening reception from 6 to 8 p.m. at the Miller Gallery featuring live screen-printing and music by DJ Baglady. Both events are free and open to the public.
Although histories of political groups and counter-cultures have been written and political activist shows have been held, this exhibition is a groundbreaking attempt to chronicle the artistic and cultural production of these movements. "Signs of Change" offers a chance to see relatively unknown or rarely seen works, and is intended to not only provide a historical framework for contemporary activism, but also to serve as an inspiration for the present and the future.
Countries represented in "Signs of Change" include Argentina, Australia, Austria, Bosnia, Brazil, Myanmar (formerly Burma), Canada, Chile, China, Colombia, Congo, Croatia, Czech Republic (formerly Czechoslovakia), Denmark, El Salvador, France, Germany, Greece, Indonesia, Iran, Israel, Italy, Japan, Kenya, Mexico, Mozambique, Northern Ireland, Netherlands, Nicaragua, Palestine, Poland, Portugal, Puerto Rico, Romania, Serbia, Slovenia, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Switzerland, United Kingdom and United States.
Greenwald is a media artist and Ph.D. candidate in the Electronic Art Department at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. Her collaborative work often takes the form of video, writing and cultural organizing. She worked at the Video Data Bank from 1998 to 2005 and taught DIY exhibition at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago from 2003 to 2005.
MacPhee is an artist, curator and activist currently living in Brooklyn, N.Y. His work often revolves around themes of radical politics, privatization and public space. His most recent book is "Reproduce & Revolt/Reproduce Y Rebélate" (Soft Skull Press, 2008, co-edited with Favianna Rodriguez). He also organizes the Celebrate People's History Poster Series and is part of the political art cooperative Justseeds.org.
The Miller Gallery is located in the Purnell Center for the Arts on Carnegie Mellon's campus. The gallery, free and open to the public, is open from noon to 6 p.m., Tuesday through Sunday. Visit www.cmu.edu/millergallery for more information.
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Carnegie Mellon School of Drama Students Explore
Boundaries of Theatre in “PLAYGROUND” Festival
PITTSBURGH—Carnegie Mellon University School of Drama’s student directors, designers, actors, technicians and playwrights will work in partnership on more than 60 productions to present their own work in “PLAYGROUND: A Festival of Independent Student Work,” created, prepared and rehearsed in a single week.
Advised by faculty and staff from the School of Drama, the festival will take place Jan. 29–31 in and around the Purnell Center for the Performing Arts on the university’s campus.
“PLAYGROUND is an amazing opportunity for our students to test their wings. The work is truly ‘owned’ by them and the passion they bring to the work is unlike anything else that happens within the School of Drama or the university,” said Dick Block, associate head of the School of Drama and PLAYGOUND coordinator.
Events include dramatic, dance and musical performances, mixed media projects, cabarets, films, installations, murals, song cycles and lightshows. PLAYGROUND’s rotating schedule allows audiences to sample a show for 15, 30 or 45 minutes at almost any time over the three-day festival. One hundred five proposals were submitted but only 61 performances, 10 installation projects and two performance art pieces were accepted. Students have the week off from classes to develop the productions.
Now in its sixth year, PLAYGROUND provides an outlet for the creative expression of independent student-produced work. The festival provides an opportunity for students in the School of Drama to innovate, collaborate and commit to experiences in theater-making as diverse as their own passions and preoccupations. Many students take on the unexpected — playwrights, directors and designers perform; actors write and direct. Drama students also collaborate with students from other schools within the university such as the School of Music, the School of Art and the College of Humanities and Social Sciences, as well as students from other universities including New York University, University of Michigan, the Hartt School of Music and UCLA.
PLAYGROUND opens to the public at 6 p.m. on Thursday, Jan. 29 and continues throughout the day on Friday, Jan. 30 and Saturday, Jan. 31. All performances are free. For tickets and for the festival schedule, call the School of Drama Box Office at 412-268-2407 or visit www.cmu.edu/cfa/drama/playground.
The University Lecture Series presents curators Dara Greenwald and Josh MacPhee, who will discuss and present their mutlimedia Miller Gallery exhibit, "Signs of Change: Social Movement Cultures 1960s to Now." Greenwald and MacPhee have curated an extensive collection of almost 1,000 posters, flyers, photographs, videos, films, audio and other ephemera produced by social movements in more than 40 countries. Beginning with the Civil Rights movement and following social justice movements up to today's fight for the environment and against capitalism, "Signs of Change" sheds new light on the important interplay between cultural production and drives for social change. The works in the show not only represent millions organizing for societies to transform, but also raise important questions about the functions and forms of art and culture in our times. The exhibition provides a dialogue with the past, and creates a previously unwritten context and history for the important cultural work of social movements up to the present.
Their interactive lecture will take audiences through the works in the exhibition, providing historical context to the show as well as exposure to the process of organizing it. It will include images, video, audio, and discussion.
Jan 23, 2009
4:30 PM
Where:
McConomy Auditorium, University Center
The Answer is Blowin’ in the Wind: Shifts in the Production and Distribution of War Photography Through 150 Years of Armed Conflict,” Jennifer Saffron, Pitt instructor of English, 6 p.m. Jan. 22, 113 Barco Law Building, Pitt’s Global Studies Program, Global Solutions Education Fund, 412-624-2918
http://www.ucis.pitt.edu/global/eventsupcoming.shtml
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