Shifting Communities:
SP Weather Station; Laura Napier; Christy Speakman
Bronx River Art Center / BRAC on the block @ Bronx Art Space
305 E 140th St #1A Bronx, NY
October 21 – November 19, 2011
Opening Friday, October 21st 6-9 PM
Public events:
Sunday, October 30th 5PM: Screening of Owning the Weather
Sunday, November 6th 3-6PM: DIY Weather Report Workshop
SPWS is pleased to announce its participation in the year-long Shifting Communities series at Bronx River Art Center.
Please join us for the opening reception October 21 (+ public events October 30 / November 6th) A full press release is below. We will be exhibiting two new projects:
SP Weather Reports 2010
Participating artists: (January) Liz Zanis; (February) Graham McDougal; (March) James Walsh; (April) Carissa Carman; (May) Mark Parsons; (June) Tim Dye; (July) Douglas Paulson; (August) Robyn York; (September) Cross Current Resonance Transducer [LoVid (Tali Hinkis and Kyle Lapidus) and Douglas Repetto]; (October) Nicholas Fraser; (November) Man Bartlett and Angela Washko; (December) Ellie Harrison. (image below)
Weather Networks NYC
A map with photographs and texts documenting SPWS’s ongoing research into the diverse groups (from government-funded research initiatives to citizen observers) involved with monitoring the weather and environmental conditions of New York City’s ecosystem. Many thanks to the following with their assistance: Dr. Alan Blumberg, The Center for Marine Systems, Stevens Institute of Technology; Dave Conover, Hudson River Sloop Clearwater, Inc.; Dr. Holger M. Eisl, Center for the Biology of Natural Systems (CBNS), Queens College, CUNY; Dr. Stuart Gaffin and Dr. Cynthia Rosenzweig, Center for Climate Systems Research, Earth Institute, Columbia University; Sarah Johnson, NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene; Kristen King, NYC Department of Parks & Recreation; Dr. Daniel C. Robie, York College, CUNY; and others.
Full press release after the jump.
https://spweatherstation.net/
http://www.bronxriverart.org/gallery.cfm
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=205323236206460
PRESS RELEASE
Shifting Communities:</ br>
SP Weather Station; Laura Napier; Christy Speakman
Shifting Communities highlights dynamic initiatives in culture and the arts currently at work in the margins of the art world and American society. The goal of this project is to create a paradigm where community-centric contemporary art and artist think-tanks can be a tool for public service; a language for the exploration and investigation of the broader aspects of culture and society; and a magnet that can bring different cultures and ideologies together in order to strengthen a more inclusive definition of community.
In the second exhibition of the series, Bronx based artists Laura Napier and Christy Speakman, and collective SP Weather Station interpret the weather through three distinct approaches. These include describing patterns of human movement and neighborhood territories, using data to inform and produce artwork and move about one’s community, and creating a social platform for environmental researchers and DIY meteorologists.
Laura Napier’s Weather=Contested Space consists of three interrelated projects that explore informal territorial demarcations in and around the South Bronx. These projects include an 80 page printout archived from an online forum on the topic, “Are hipsters coming to the Bronx?”, photographs documenting territorial graffiti in the neighborhood, and video taken in the nearby 138th subway station of a temporary employee break room on the platform alongside a video in which fans and locals face-off as they cross a street against each other near Yankee Stadium.
Christy Speakman’s Concrete Rainforest is a video of three-dimensional animated photographs of rainforest leaves, wild city weeds, and air conditioner puddles. While hiking in the Costa Rican rainforest, Speakman photographed the complex ] patterns left in flora and vegetation by insects. Using the rainfall and temperature data collected by SP Weather Station to animate the foliage, each leaf becomes a world orbiting through a complex web of wet pavement air conditioner puddles and wild green weeds spouting in the city.
SP Weather Station’s (SPWS) SP Weather Reports and Weather Networks NYC consider two distinct ‘communities’: SPWS’s own loose network of collaborating artists, and the complex web of weather-monitoring networks in New York City. SP Weather Reports (2008-) are an ongoing edition in which one artist or artist group is invited to create a work in response to SPWS data for each month of the year. Weather Networks NYC is a wall map with photographs and texts documenting SPWS’s ongoing research into the diverse groups (from government-funded research initiatives to citizen observers) involved with monitoring the weather and environmental conditions of New York City’s ecosystem. This map will serve as a backdrop for workshops inviting the public to create their own weather forecast for the city, and for a social gathering and screening of weather related films.
Alongside this exhibition will be a series of roundtable presentations, workshops, and discussions. SPWS will present: Weather film screening and weather get-together on October 30th and a DIY Weather Report video workshop on November 6th. Christy Speakman will talk about how the different neighborhoods of the Bronx have influenced her work on November 6th. Please refer to our website for information about these workshops and the ongoing schedule of Shifting Communities events.
This exhibition is made possible with support from the New York State Council on the Arts, a state agency. Additional support is provided by the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz Jr., Majority Leader Joel Rivera, the Bronx Delegation of the New York City Council, New York State Senator Ruth Hassell-Thompson, The National Endowment for the Arts, the Deutsche Bank Americas Foundation’s Arts & Enterprise Place-Based Revitalization Program, and The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts.