The Listening Station at the International House!

The Listening Station was at The International House, from January 11 to February 2, 2007

A reception with the artist ( me) was held on January 11, 2007 from 5-7 pm

I was present to facilitate and discuss the project on Thursday evenings from 5-7 pm throughout the installation ( January 11, January 18, Januray 25, and February 1)


The Listening Station was permanently installed on the upper level of the International House lobby, available for use by all who visit the building. The lobby is open to the public, so stop by and give it a try! You are welcome to visit with someone you would like to take turns listening with, or come and participate with me or someone who you have not met before.

See the Listening Station blog for more details, and documentation.

Artifact-Metafact

most recent projects-in-the-works:

a group show organized by Carla Aspenberg and Tamas Veszi, "Artifact-Metafact"
I'll be creating a new group of ink-bubble drawings for this exhibition, as relating to the symbolism of the female body, and the process of understanding my relation to my mother's breast cancer.

See the ongoing blog project by the artists.

The show will be exhibited in September 2007 at
Repetti in Queens, NY not far from PS1

stay tuned for exact dates and opening info....

Open Art Room

Open Art Room is a series of drop-in workshops that I am leading at this fall ( and beyond?)
at the West Philly radical community room, the A-Space.

So far, attendance tends to include young parents and their young children, and adults of all ages from the neighborhood. It's been about five to seven people at each gathering.

My ideas for this project are very well summed up in this press clipping:

The Philadelphia City Paper

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Open Art Room!

1st and 3rd Wednesday Nights at the A-Space
October 4- December 20, 2006 ( for now)
Remaining Dates: Nov 15, Dec 6 & 20
4722 Baltimore Ave
7-9 pm

Open Art Room is a series of open art workshops, for people of all ages
led by West Philly artist and art educator Zoë Cohen.

All are welcome!
encouragement and guidance for those who feel new to art,
support and constructive feedback for those who usually make art on their own.
The first half hour of each session will be a class format in which Zoë will present a skill or lead a group art game.
The rest of the session will be open art time- you can continue trying out new skills, get instruction and feedback on art that you make, play around with group art games, and connect with other people about art and creativity.

Please bring your own materials, and consider bringing found or recycled supplies to share with others.
suggestions:
SCISSORS!, pencils, pens, erasers, markers, crayons, charcoal, old computer paper, recycled one-side-printed paper, color paper, newspaper, cardboard, paper plates, a ruler, hole-puncher, masking tape, clear tape, elmer's glue, glue sticks, white-out, ink or watercolors and brushes, small tubes of water-based paints, old books, scraps of: magazines,wrapping paper, tissue paper, ribbon, yarn…

Sliding Scale: $5- $12
Drop in: no registration needed
lots of parking for bikes and cars, steps from the 34 trolley
Children under 12, please bring an adult

updates: LAVA Installations and The Navel Project

It's happening!

Harmony Thompson, Jay Sand, and I are so please to announce....
The inauguration of the on-going LAVA Installation project.

The Lancaster Avenue Autonomous Zone is a center for radical media and organizing at 4134 Lancaster Ave in West Philadelphia. The LAVA collective's mission is to create an empowering and welcoming physical space where diverse communities converge to build connections and break down barriers, blending media-making, artistic expression and hardy nuts-and-bolts organizing in order to advance movements for justice.

The LAVA Installation project is an attempt to fill the entire three-story row house that is LAVA with permanent art installations by Philadelphia artists who are interested in using art to move social change forward.

Jay Sand invited Harmony and I to organize this on-going project, and organize we did!
In addition to inviting, curating, scheduling, and publicizing, Harmony and I have both created installations in the space.

The images below are from my installation- The LAVA Navel Project. Each form is a plaster cast of the navel of a person who is involved in the LAVA space in some way. The installation is on the stairs from the second to the third floors of the building.





















press!
The Philadelphia City Paper
The Philadelphia Weekly


The first round of installations opened with a well-attended reception on Saturday November 4, 2006:










the crowd











bathroom by bilwa












tile mural by harmony and beth
posters by eian










molly sand wheat-pastes with zoe in the " show someone how you feel about something" bathroom










harmony means business. donate, dammit!


participating artists include:

Beth Uzwiak & Harmony Thompson
Bilwa
Des Jackson
Dominic Lepore
Eian Weissman
Elysa Voshell
HAAK Collective
JJ Tiziou
Jodi Netzer
Michael Schwartz
Mary Tasillo
Sarah Phillips
Zoe Cohen

We are now seeking proposals for the next round of installations, due to open in May 2007. Interested artists can stop by the space during open library hours, Wednesdays 4-8pm and Sundays Noon-6pm. Please contact me for more information.

updates: Philadelphia Open Studio Tours

Saturday, October 7 and Sunday October 8, 2006
Noon - 6 pm
4013 Chestnut St, West Philadelphia

On exhibit were drawings and sculptural installation in my studio, listening station documentation in the gallery, and the actual listening stations were available for use on the porch ( documentation coming soon on the Listening Station blog)

I had a wonderful weekend, with more than sixty visitors over the two days, including New York artists Paul Lamarre and Melissa Wolf, who are creating a documentary about the censored Brooklyn College MFA Thesis show of 2006.

For more information on Philadelphia Open Studio Tours, see the POST website.

updates: The Pressed Image- Art in City Hall

The Pressed Image
Art in City Hall

July 10-October 6, 2006

City Hall, Philadelphia
north-east corner, 2nd floor

On display was the hanging embossed print from the installation
The Seven Fruits of Israel/Palestine

a bit of press I received for this exhibition:
The Jewish Exponent

updates: The Listening Station

The Listening Station is an on-going, public, participatory art project. I conceived of this piece and built the two current listening stations while in Brooklyn.

From July 2006 to January 2007 ( and beyond)I will be presenting the listening stations for your use in a series of public installations around Philadelphia in conjunction with my residency at the 40th st Artist in Residence program.

Please see the Listening Station blog for the complete archive of documentation of this project, and for updates on future installations.

updates: 40th St Artist in Residence

In June of 2006 I moved back to Philadelphia from Brooklyn, having completed my MFA at Brooklyn College ( with no small effort- see previous post).

From July 15, 2006 to January 15, 2007 I will be in studio residence at the 40th St AIR program in West Philadelphia.

This program provides studio space for West Philadelphia artists in exhange for community projects. As part of this residency, I am presenting several public installations of the Listening Station project.















Zoe in the studio at 40th St AIR - October 2006

updates: Plan B and Plan B Prevails

zoe and tamas at plan B prevails





How to summarize helping to organize an 18 person group MFA Thesis show in a Veterans Memorial Hall with movable partition walls and a tiny budget, having it open successfully, then locked up the next day by the Brooklyn Parks Department, the artwork illegally removed by one's own University, locked up for a week, being pressured into re-opening the show in a new space in DUMBO, working to get all 18 students to agree to go ahead with the re-opened show, trying to get the University to holding its end of the bargain in re-mounting the show, and then suing the City of New York, the Brooklyn Parks Department, and Brooklyn College for first-amendment violations and damages to the artwork?

oy.

for all the info, including all press releases, links to New York Times and other press, and photos, see:

Plan B Prevails- the website for the re-mounted show in DUMBO

Plan Censored- The Official Blog

updates: repeat after me

Repeat After Me ( January 7-28, 2006) was curated by Carla Aspenberg and Sarah Phillips, friends from the Brooklyn College MFA program. We had a packed reception at the Flux Factory, Queens. The image from the previous post is the installation piece that I created for the show. It consists of hundreds of unfired clay impressions of my navel, arranged on fabric in a pattern that interprets the cellular tissue of the uterine lining and placenta.

A press clipping for this exhibition:
Queens Chronicle