Please join us in welcoming our new Artist in Research, Jesse Kaminsky!!

Intro and Artist Talk - Tuesday, July 8th @ 7:30 pm

@ the Berwick Research Institute

The Berwick is growing its ranks!

We are looking to grow our staff of art administrators, creative nurturers, and innovative doers with two new positions, a Director-in-Residence and a Special Projects Incubator Program Coordinator. Do you fit the bill? Can you handle the heat?

Director-in-Residence

New Captain sought for the wayward Ship BERWICK. The BERWICK is seeking a Captain with fathoms of energy and vision to help steer the Ship into uncharted programming territory. Compensation will be directly related to spoils and booty taken on during the long, hard voyage. As Captain of the ship, the new Director-in-Residence, err Captain will have license to navigate the vessel toward harbors and peoples that you desire to engage with. You will oversee a small Crew of dedicated salts, passionate in their work, scrubbing deck for the most part because of a love of the sea.

To view full - and slightly less scurvied - job description for the Director-in-Residence postion, please click here.

Application deadline is July 31st, 2008.

Or What About...
  

Are you a connector? A nurturer of creative projects? A mother (or father) hen who wants nothing more than to hatch some incredible art on the unsuspecting heads of the Boston public?

If so, then you might be the perfect person to join the Berwick as its new Program Coordinator of the Special Projects Incubator Program. The Berwick is accepting applications now through July 15th. Read the job description and find out how to apply here. 

Application deadline is July 15th, 2008. 

The Berwick joins the Island Alliance and Studio Soto in the 2nd Annual Artist Encampment, a  "homesteading" experience on a Boston Harbor Island this Labor Day weekend.

DATE:  August 28 -  September 1, 2008

WHERE: Bumpkin Island, Boston Harbor Islands

PROPOSALS ARE BEING ACCEPTED THRU JULY 9TH.  TO FIND OUT HOW TO APPLY, PLEASE CLICK HERE. 

The Berwick Research Institute is pleased to announce the Second Annual Boston Harbor Art Encampment, August 28 - September 1, 2008.  Starting Thursday, August 28, six artists or artist collectives will each receive one plot of prime, arable land in the middle of Boston Harbor. As island “homesteaders” during the following five days, they will:

* Build a temporary shelter on the land

* Live on the land for at least four nights, and

* Improve the land via a site-specific project or performance.

The public is invited to observe the works-in-progress on Saturday August 30th, with Public Visitation days on Sunday August 31st and Monday September 1st. 

To learn more how you can lend your skills to the project as a volunteer (both during the build-up and over Labor Day weekend), please visit the Berwick Contact Page.  

Acting as temporary "homesteaders," artists will explore and transform an empty plot of land (their campsite) into a resource sustaining themselves and their community. Their works will pay tribute to the island's past inhabitants, highlight the Island's natural resources, and engage the public as performer, apprentice, student, and honored guest. Projects include temporary shelters, shrines, musical instruments, performance, video and electronic art, and sculpture.

Featured 2007 projects included:

Kristjan Varnik- Giant Sand Bass - An interactive instrument that transformed the natural resources of Bumpkin island into a huge musical instrument over eight feet tall providing the opportunity for multiple people to play it at once.

Madhu Kaza - Islet: (Hospitality) - An interactive performance that served as an exploration of how ritual and politeness mediate the fragile boundaries between public and personal space.

Joshua Rosenstock, Sarah Phillips, Jonah Goldstein, Jessica Baptista, and Marilyn Fontenrose -  Untitled - Visitors were recruited to join scavenging parties and help assemble a bestiary of feral farm animals. 

Else Eaton, Marybeth Mungovan, Tiffany Dumont, Ryan Riehle, Rory Jackson Untitled - Shells, fossils, rocks, and trash from the island were incorporated into a dwelling/functional community gathering place/performance space with instruments made from found materials.

 
Alison Wood, Sven Anderson, Dana Moore, Vanessa Wood - Oasis of Conscious Stillness - Within the thatched tipi made of fallen timber, invasive brush species, dried grasses, twisted branches and curling vines people paused and absorbed the natural, historical, social, and artistic energy pervading the island. Visitors also joined in breathing, movement and meditation practices on Labor Day Sunday.

For documentation of the 2007 Bumpkin Island Art Encampment, please visit www.wooloo.org/BumpkinIslandLandOffice. 

The 2008 Art Encampment is one of two projects supported by the Berwick Research Institute's Special Projects Incubator program. In addition, this event is co-presented by Studio Soto, an artist performance/screening/exhibit space in Fort Point and the Island Alliance , a non-profit in support of the Boston Harbor Islands. 

Where: Bakalar Gallery @ MassArt

When: May1st - May 9th 

Opening: Thursday, May 1st 6-8

We are very excited to see some brand new work from 2007 AIR Artist, Maura Jasper. We'll see you there!!

What : Laura Torres Intro and artist talk
When: April 15th, 7:30 pm
Where: @ the Berwick Research Intitute, 14 Palmer St, Dudley Sq, Roxbury

Laura Torres will be working on a project about soccer and Ecuador's
participation in the sport on a global scale. As both an insider and an
outsider to both US and Ecuadorian culture, she has often felt herself
in a unique position of constant negotiation of cultural boundaries.
Never having been much of a soccer or sports fan, Laura was strangely
riveted by Ecuador's part in the World Cup and felt connected to a huge
network of fans worldwide. Soccer's inherent minimalism allows for
an in-depth appreciation of the network of plays and movement of the
body. She hopes the weather will soon get warm enough to play fútbol
with other Boston fans.

The Berwick is happy to announce that with the coming of spring comes our new batch of Artists in Research! It was a lengthy process but we are truly excited about the three that have been chosen. The first AIR artist starts April 1st - VERY soon. Keep an eye peeled for info on the opening. We look forward to seeing you there!

Bonnie Bastien and Nova Benway, Co-Curators for the AIR Program 

Laura Torres 4/08-6/08

Laura Torres is a Boston based conceptual artist whose work explores ideas of networks, interconnectivity, boundaries and paths. She will be working on a project about soccer and Ecuador's participation in the sport on a global scale. Click here for more info. 

Jesse Kaminsky 7/08-9/08

Jessy Kaminsky is a Boston based artist who makes process-oriented sculpture and sculptural installations that create complex systems from simple materials. He plans to explore the way we understand and construct place using perception, memory and desire. Kaminsky seeks the threshold of perception where the familiar becomes unfamiliar, and the mind explores a variety of new, sometimes implausible, theories in order to make sense of the world again. Click here for more info.

Nathalie Miebach 10/08-12/08

Nathalie Miebach is an artist originally from Germany and France. She lives in Brookline and recently spent much time on Cape Cod doing research for her sculptural work. At the Berwick, Miebach will work on "Weather Suits for Cities" which focuses on exploring human perspective and physical variability of weather within an urban environment. Click here for more info.

This is a FREE event with refreshments!! Is there anything better?

This Sunday, December 9th, 8 pm (doors @ 7:30)

The Garment District Inc., 200 Broadway, Cambridge, MA 02139

Cambridge, MA, December 9, 2007 — Ever wonder what happens to your old clothes after you give them away? Where do the clothes you find at the thrift store come from? A new indie film about
secondhand clothing and immigrant communities, made by duo Shell & Bertozzi, answers these questions, and more. On December 9th at 8pm, the filmmakers are screening "Secondhand (Pepe)" as part of a special free event at Dollar-a-Pound (downstairs at the famous Garment
District vintage clothing mecca in Kendall Square). In the movie, a historical memoir intertwines with the present-day story of 'pepe' —secondhand clothing that flows from the United States to Haiti.  Plus great music, archival footage of old-time ragpickers and behind-the-scenes shots of
Cambridge's Dollar-a-Pound.

"We followed the trail of secondhand American clothes all the way from Dollar-a-Pound to Haiti to film for our movie," say Vanessa Bertozzi and Hanna Rose Shell, the movie's co-directors. "We hope some of the same people who were there when we started shooting will  come to the screening. This screening brings it full-circle. What a great atmosphere to show our movie —people wearing their favorite pieces of secondhand clothing and sitting in the mountains of clothes at
Dollar-a-Pound!"

 The used clothing business has grown to be an enormous industry over the course of the 20th-century. Today billions of pounds of used American clothing make its way to developing
countries, and Haiti —with its particular political/economic relationship to the United States — serves as a remarkable example. Interestingly, the industry in the US has its roots in earlier waves of
immigrant communities, notably Eastern European Jews who became ragpickers upon arrival.  The
impact of this business — both economically and culturally — and its history are little understood by the average America.

Secondhand (Pepe) serves as a conversation starter for Americans, people of Jewish descent, Haitian-Americans and Haitians. Everyone has a voice in the movie and the imagery, music and
language of these cultures inter-mix in the flow of the film.

For more information :
Contact: Vanessa Bertozzi vanbertozzi@gmail.com 917-692-4564 or Hanna Rose Shell shell@fas.harvard.edu 617-230-6900

The AIR Application for the 2008 season is finally done and ready to be downloaded.

You can download the file using the link in the menu on the right under "Artist in Research" or click here to download the PDF. 

The deadline is February 1st, 2008.

We really look forward to reading all of the proposals. It's the best part of the year!

The Berwick and John Osorio Buck, AIR '03 invite you to join us at

the opening reception of  U7H36 –  Sustainable Hydroponae Shelter 

When-

Reception : Oct. 26, 5 – 7 pm

Exhibit runs from October 26 – December 7, 2007

Where-

Essex Art Center

56 Island St

Lawrence, Ma. 01840

Directions:

Take the Haverhill commuter rail to Lawrence,

Two blocks north, over Merrimack River Bridge, on Union St.

Right on Island St., half a block to Art Center.

Utopia 7; Systems of Survival; Hydroponae Project

U7H36 is the second project in a series of shelters under the umbrella heading of Utopia 7. The purpose of this series has been to develop a number shelter units incorporating a variety of systems to facilitate survival, primarily practical hydroponics to grow vegetables. The Hydroponae Project is an attempt to discern the possibilities of growing food in a situation where either water quality is at risk or other environmental hazards may exist to impede traditional gardening.

U7H36 is a partial recreation of the #36 fish hut in Antarctica integrating hydroponics to supplement a limited diet. This project raises certain questions and issues about our contemporary world, how we manage our natural resources and how we might maintain ourselves in emergency situations. The hydroponics units and corresponding shelters are an attempt to envision a potential reality when the natural is literally enmeshed in the mechanical. This project hopes to provoke a dialogue concerning the very real issues involved in personal and social survival, raise awareness, and potentially pursue a positive alternative solution. 

More information at:  www.jobprojects.net

This project has been generously funded in part by the LEF Foundation and Artadia