Meet Me at the Table

When: Friday July 13th from 7-10pm

Where: Art Interactive in Central Square, Cambridge.

Who: Guests included...

Dirk Adams is a local artist, curator, and member of the Mobius Artist Group.

Kenneth Bailey is Sector Organizing and Strategy Lead for the Design Studio for Social Intervention . Most recently he has been a trainer and a consultant, primarily on issues of organizational development and community building.

Nova Benway is a local arts administrator with an interest in collaboration and cross-pollination of ideas.

Neil Coletta, chef for Meet Me at the Table: Public Art & Technology, is a local chef, DJ and food writer.

George Fifield is a media arts curator, writer, teacher and artist. He is the founder and director of Boston Cyberarts Inc., a nonprofit arts organization, which produces the Boston Cyberarts Festival.

Liz Geller is Manager of Clark Gallery in Worcester, MA, devoted to the works of New England artists.

Jock Gill is President and Founder of Penfield Gill, Incorporated , a consulting firm specializing in New Media communications, marketing, and strategic planning. The firm also provides its clients with special scouting services: people, ideas, and companies. Currently, Mr. Gill is a cofounder of the not-for-profit Grass Energy Collaborative and the for-profit Biomass Commodities Corporation -- both registered in Vermont.

Natasha Khandekar is Director of Art Interactive, a non-profit arts space in Cambridge that provides a public forum that fosters self-expression and human interaction through the development and exhibition of art that is contemporary, experimental, and participatory.

Brian Knep is a new media artist who lives and works in Boston. His large-scale interactive exhibit Deep Wounds , 2006, recently won an AICA/New England award for Best Time Based Work.

Judith Leemann is an artist, writer, and educator invested in creating objects, texts, and environments that interrupt habitual thinking. She frequently works in collaboration with others and with system-based methods of inquiry, poaching structures from outside of the arts in order to create things that do not behave as proper art objects.

Meg Rotzel a founder, former director (2002-2006) and currently co-curator of the Public Art Incubator of the Berwick Research Institute. She is also Curatorial Associate at the Center for Advanced Visual Studies at MIT where she coordinates Fellow and Visiting Artist programs. As an artist, Rotzel coordinates public projects and gives private gifts. Rotzel is currently a candidate for Brown University's Masters in Public Humanities.

Susan Sakash acts as the Associate Director of Development at Raw Art Works, an art therapy youth arts organization (www.rawart.org). She is also a street band trombonist.

Phaedra Shanbaum is Co-Director of Axiom Gallery in Jamaica Plain. AXIOM's mission is to provide space to foster the growth of new and experimental media through exhibition and presentation of new media art and artists. www.axiomgallery.org

Matthew Shanley, artist for Meet Me at the Table: Public Art & Technology, will be the Berwick's Artist in Research for Fall 2007.

Stay tuned for thoughts and reflections by dinner participants...  
 

For this second of five dinner conversations, the Berwick called together a diverse group of individuals who are using technology and new media to push the notions of public and community access within their specific disciplines or  fields.

Over three courses, this dinner's chef and artist team (Matthew Shanley, the Berwick's AIR artist this fall, and Neil Coletta, a local chef/DJ) challenged the format of the dinner party, while still encouraging a delicious dining experience! We hope that these differing perspectives will help inform the ways in which our PAI "artists in residence" think about and utilize technology in their public art works.
 

We invited guests to share proven practices from their respective fields (education, community organizing, urban planning, health care, etc.) to explore ways in which public art might use new media technology as a effective tool for stimulating dialogue across disciplines.

The dinner site, Art Interactive, was chosen because it highlights the city of Cambridge’s support of and instigation of projects promoting the intersection between art and technology. However, we attempted to open up this conversation to include the perspectives of groups and individuals not from art or new media backgrounds who see public art as a powerful strategy to convey their work to a wider audience.
 

Some questions that interested us going into the dinner include:

Within these shifting modes of communication and representation how do our traditional understandings of public spaces and communities change?

Who is the public for new media public art and how might this public be engaged within a widening digital landscape?

Meet Me at the Table: A Project of the Public Art Incubator (PAI) Program

The Public Art Cookbook has arrived! Share the recipes, conversations and ideas that were shared amongst the Meet Me At The Table participants. Sample from the pantry gift box to create your own dish or public art project.

To purchase your own copy of the Meet Me At The Table Cookbook and Public Art Pantry, please email the Meet Me At The Table staff using the Contact Page. Each purchase of $45 includes a limited edition cookbook, spices and selections from the essential pantry list, beautifully packaged by the Berwick staff! You can also make a request to have the pdf of the cookbook emailed to you - please include your email address, mailing address, and how you found out about the cookbook and what you intend to use it for when requesting a copy.

 

Mission of The Public Art Incubator and Meet me at the Table

During 2007 and through the spring of 2008, the Berwick's Public Art Incubator Program (PAI) curated Meet Me At The Table, a series of four unique dinner events that brought together artists, community organizers, urban designers, arts administrators, activists and other interested individuals to discuss the potential of socially based, temporary works to activate public spaces in the metro Boston area.

This year long project evolved out of the Berwick's interest in expanding our network beyond the arts community, and challenging the ways in which the Public Art Incubator program has operated since its inception in 2005.

Throughout the Meet Me At The Table conversation series, the Berwick invited culinary and visual artists to create menus that aesthetically and gastronomically evoke the specific topic of each conversation. This project was launched in late 2006, with the final dinners completed in January and February of 2008. Each of the dinners brought new faces and perspectives to the table and helped shape the direction and conversation of subsequent dinners.

The intentions behind these dinners were varied but interrelated:

• To literally bring people to the table in order to address issues that impact the quality of, and relationships behind, the public art being created in the cities of Cambridge, Boston, and Somerville.
• To meet and begin conversations with potential partners, so that future public art projects can evolve out of previously identified, shared interests.
• To create a platform by which individuals, organizations and municipalities can continue these conversations to the benefit of the wider communities who are ultimately affected by the quality of and intention behind artwork situated in public spaces.
• To research and document the dinners and public art making in this region in order to create a creative tool that displays PAI’s findings for a future public event

Importantly, the PAI curators, Meg Rotzel and Susan Sakash, felt that the Berwick could learn much from other socially-engaged (non arts-specific) fields in terms of how to foster effective collaborations and ways to make art that challenges viewers to take on a more active role in the way they perceive and interact with the world around them. And at the same time, they were interested in learning how to keep this work accessible to those who do not approach it first through the lens of contemporary art. The ultimate goal of the project has been to work towards an effective model for experimental, temporary public art production in the Boston area. We also hoped to delve into what role the Public Art Incubator program might play within that model.

 

Meet Me At The Table ultimately intended to serve as a platform from which the various parties invested in the production of and interaction with public art have an equal voice in shaping the dialogue around pertinent issues on these subjects.

 

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Meet Me At The Table is generously supported by the LEF Foundation, the Massachusetts Cultural Council, and the Boston Cultural Council.

The Berwick’s Public Art Incubator began in 2005 as a residency program that supports artists who make temporary artworks in public places. In particular, Berwick PAI artists use their residency period for projects that are still in the research and development stage, incubating their ideas and building relationships with partnering organizations and individuals. The Berwick works within the realm of social public spaces, drawing upon the knowledge base and resources of local artists, neighborhood organizations, activists, educators, citizens and arts organizations. Through our programming and artworks we position ourselves as learners who create collaborative conversations through socially focused artworks.

Mission of The Public Art Incubator and Meet me at the Table

During 2007 and through the spring of 2008, the Berwick's Public Art Incubator Program (PAI) curated Meet Me At The Table, a series of four unique dinner events that brought together artists, community organizers, urban designers, arts administrators, activists and other interested individuals to discuss the potential of socially based, temporary works to activate public spaces in the metro Boston area.

This year long project evolved out of the Berwick's interest in expanding our network beyond the arts community, and challenging the ways in which the Public Art Incubator program has operated since its inception in 2005.

Throughout the Meet Me At The Table conversation series, the Berwick invited culinary and visual artists to create menus that aesthetically and gastronomically evoke the specific topic of each conversation. This project was launched in late 2006, with the final dinners completed in January and February of 2008. Each of the dinners brought new faces and perspectives to the table and helped shape the direction and conversation of subsequent dinners.

The intentions behind these dinners were varied but interrelated:

• To literally bring people to the table in order to address issues that impact the quality of, and relationships behind, the public art being created in the cities of Cambridge, Boston, and Somerville.
• To meet and begin conversations with potential partners, so that future public art projects can evolve out of previously identified, shared interests.
• To create a platform by which individuals, organizations and municipalities can continue these conversations to the benefit of the wider communities who are ultimately affected by the quality of and intention behind artwork situated in public spaces.
• To research and document the dinners and public art making in this region in order to create a creative tool that displays PAI’s findings for a future public event

Importantly, the PAI curators, Meg Rotzel and Susan Sakash, felt that the Berwick could learn much from other socially-engaged (non arts-specific) fields in terms of how to foster effective collaborations and ways to make art that challenges viewers to take on a more active role in the way they perceive and interact with the world around them. And at the same time, they were interested in learning how to keep this work accessible to those who do not approach it first through the lens of contemporary art. The ultimate goal of the project has been to work towards an effective model for experimental, temporary public art production in the Boston area. We also hoped to delve into what role the Public Art Incubator program might play within that model.

 

Meet Me At The Table ultimately intended to serve as a platform from which the various parties invested in the production of and interaction with public art have an equal voice in shaping the dialogue around pertinent issues on these subjects.

 

------------------

Meet Me At The Table is generously supported by the LEF Foundation, the Massachusetts Cultural Council, and the Boston Cultural Council.

The Berwick’s Public Art Incubator began in 2005 as a residency program that supports artists who make temporary artworks in public places. In particular, Berwick PAI artists use their residency period for projects that are still in the research and development stage, incubating their ideas and building relationships with partnering organizations and individuals. The Berwick works within the realm of social public spaces, drawing upon the knowledge base and resources of local artists, neighborhood organizations, activists, educators, citizens and arts organizations. Through our programming and artworks we position ourselves as learners who create collaborative conversations through socially focused artworks.