A huge thanks to everyone who stopped by and checked out our our installation  ”Form/Perform/Re-Form: The Mind and Body In Motion”at Art Murmur. The event was a huge success and we really enjoyed collaborating with Rock Paper Scissors!  A huge thanks to all the amazing fashion models from Bella Bridal Haute Couture Atelier who put on such a wonderful runway show, and Karen and Michael from Lake Merrit Dance for their inspiring performance!

“Form, Perform, Re-Form: The Mind and Body In Motion”

Curated by The Mobile Arts Platform (Peter Foucault & Chris Treggiari) and Rock Paper Scissors

Featuring live Performances by: 

7:30 pm Runway Fashion Performance by Bella Bridal Haute Couture Atelier, East Oakland

8:10 pm Dance Performance by Karen and Michael

6:30 – 9:00pm

Interactive Artwork and Games by MAP

Participatory MAP Space Design by Patrick Wilson

Interactive Video Piece by Jonathan Grover

Endurance/Performance video by Jennifer Locke, Justin Hoover, and Will Barclift

A huge thanks to everyone who made it out to our MAP installation on Thursday September 1st at the  Tiffany Ave. Block Party event! For this exhibition we  partnered with Bernal Heights Outdoor Cinema and featured local film makers, live music, audience created short films and an interactive MAP installation.

For more info please visit: http://mobileartsplatform.wordpress.com/

Pop-Up Art Fun: The Traveling Mobile Arts Platform Hits SOMArts This Sunday

Erica_Castello

When art comes into a public space, it’s got to be accessible, right? And if its creators hope to invigorate a community, the experience has to operate at multiple scales, from the intimate to the universal. All this is understood by the people behind the Mobile Arts Platform (MAP), a traveling communal art space that for the past year has rolled up to neighborhood street festivals to bring art to the people, pop-up style.

(Look for it at SOMArts this Sunday afternoon from one to five p.m.)

MAP specializes in alternative ways to experience art in everyday life. Two interactive sculptures — conceived and transported by artists Peter Foucault and Chris Treggiari — are brought to festivals and the streets outside of galleries.

Shannon Foshe

“It is our goal to inspire the passive viewer to become an active participant,” Foucault says. “By offering interactive projects, we invite the viewer to roll up his/her sleeves and take part in the making of an object.” At some of the neighborhood festivals, Foucault and Treggiari commissioned instructors to teach a craft, such as origami or creating stencils, and for the Potrero Festival, MAP partnered with The ‘Nabe, the Potrero Neighborhood House, to reach out to people in the community to star in a talent show.

The basic activities and parameters of each event in the MAP series are conceived beforehand, but most of the artwork is created on-site by the public. During last month’s event at the Precita Eyes Urban Youth Festival in La Raza Park, Foucault and Treggiari popped up a mobile stencil station where people created three-layer stenciled poster of the city’s skyline. “People loved the piece,” says Foucault. “It was amazing to see four-year-olds and eighty-year-olds from every imaginable background working side-by-side to spay paint in stencils.”

Locals are both the input and the output, making MAP a self-reinforcing platform, one that explores and expands what both art and community can be.

This Sunday marks the final event in the MAP series, the Pop-Up Wrap-Up at SOMArts for a one-day only exhibition. Part retr, tective of MAP’s past year and part live art making, there will be a stenciling station by artist James Gregg, a work from Precita Eyes muralist Miranda Bergman, a ready-made picketing project, and a reading of haiku submitted by the public at the Cherry Blossom festival.

Follow Jolene Torr on Twitter at @JoleneTorr, SF Weekly’s Exhibitionist blog at @ExhibitionistSF, and like us on Facebook.

http://blogs.sfweekly.com/exhibitionist/2011/08/mobile_arts_platform.php

Thanks to everyone who stopped by Pop-Up Wrap Up! Was an amazing afternoon filled with interactive artmaking and a retrospective of MAP artists we worked with in 2010-11. Here are some pics from the event:

What: Mobile Arts Platform Pop-Up Wrap-Up Exhibition

Where: 934 Brannan St. (between 8th & 9th)

When: Sunday, August 14, 1-5PM

How much: Free admission

This free public event event marks the last in series of five collaborative exhibitions for 2010 – 2011. Pop-Up Wrap-Upcelebrates the many creative forces who contributed to and interacted with mobile participatory art structures conceived by lead artists Peter Foucault and Chris Treggiari.

Pop-Up Wrap-Up features participatory art making activities as well as original artwork produced by collaborating local artists and by the public at four prior interactive pop-up exhibitions at SOMArts and the Potrero Hill Neighborhood, Northern California Cherry Blossom and Urban Youth Arts festivals.

The retrospective component of Pop-Up Wrap-Up includes a mural by Miranda Bergman and ergonomically innovative seating and structural installations by Furniture Design and Architecture MFA students from California College of the Arts.

In addition, Pop-Up Wrap-Up will display video and digital media content commissioned for and displayed at the neighborhood exhibitions: live poetry and performance from the Potrero Hill Neighborhood Festival,  video combining historic and contemporary photographs of Potrero Hill by artist and Interim Director of Cultural Affairs JD Beltran, a short documentary about Bay Area murals by John Urquhart, Chris Treggiari and Peter Foucault, and video by Peter Foucault and Nico Crisafulli featuring street art from India & Berlin.

Pop-Up Wrap-Up revisits three participatory projects included in MAP’s installations at the Urban Youth Arts and Cherry Blossom festivals. Artist James Gregg will produce a new set of stencils for an interactive stencil art assembly station. Pop-Up Wrap-Up also resurrects the Yes, We Can ________ Positive Picketing Project, which allows any member of the public to create a mini- pronouncement of values by customizing a ready-made protest style sign with their own message. There will be a live reading of haiku submitted by the public at the Cherry Blossom festival, as well as an opportunity to submit new haiku.

MAP four layer stencil design by artist James Gregg

All photos by Shannon Foshe.

Here is a link where you can check out “On The Wall” a collaborative video by John Urquhart, Chris Treggiari and Peter Foucault documenting the Bay Area mural scene:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8bOPU6Bb1_Y

Also a link to view our community sourced mural documentation slide show, where we invited people to submit pics of their favorite murals in the city!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1EznVHHUnqs

What: The Mobile Arts Platform (MAP) installs at the  Urban Youth Arts Festival

When: July 23, 1PM – 5PM

Where: Potrero Del Sol/La Raza Skate Park (25th and Utah)

How Much: Free

What Else: Click here for more information about the Festival

SOMArts Cultural Center, presents a one-day-only Mobile Arts Platform installation in collaboration with the 15th Annual Urban Youth Arts Festival, hosted by Precita Eyes. The special temporary exhibit will focus on urban art forms and will include:

• Murals by Miranda Bergman
• Video slideshows of murals from around the world by Nico Crisafulli
• Interactive stencil at production by James Gregg
• Participatory mural painting by Nicole McClure
• Collaborative video documenting local murals by Peter Foucault, Chris Treggiari, and John Urquhart
• A crowd-sourced street art slideshow
• The “Yes, we can ________” Positive Picketing Project
• Pop-up exhibition seating and structural installations by CCA Furniture Design and Architecture MFA students

All artwork produced at this event throughout the day, including the stencils, Positive Picketing signs, and murals will be instantaneously uploaded to the an online gallery where it will available for public viewing for our online community.The public can also exhibit their art both photographic and street focused by submitting images to our online crowd-sourced street art United Murals Flickr Group to be displayed in a digital slide show on our website and live at the event. Full instructions for submitting images can be found here.

Call to photographers, street artists, and muralists – interactive urban art exhibition!

What: Submit your street photography to the Mobile Arts Platform Exhibition at the Urban Youth Arts Festival.

How: Participate through the United Murals Flickr Group, full instructions below.

Deadline: Upload photos by July 20th, 2011

Questions: Email ayanda@somarts.org

Have you ever made a mural or street-based artwork, or taken a picture of an existing piece that you would like to share?  Now’s your chance! SOMArts Cultural Center and the Mobile Arts Platform seek muralists and photographers to participate in the Mobile Arts Platform exhibition at the 15th Annual Precita Eyes Urban Youth Street Art Festival. A slide-show of the submitted photos will be displayed at the Festival on Saturday July 23rd from 1-5PM, as well as in a special online gallery on the SOMArts website.

How to Participate
Just submit your photos to the United Murals Flickr Group with a photo credit, title, and quick description of where you snapped your photo.  If you encounter problems while uploading, please email ayanda@somarts.org by July 20th for assistance. All images must be owned by the person submitting them – they cannot be photographs taken or owned by another person or entity.

Photos by Shannon Foshe.

Here is the SF Weekly review for  this show. Perfect Place/No Place  got a “Pick of the week”!

http://www.sfweekly.com/events/perfect-place-no-place-reimagining-utopia-2548853

Also a link to an artbusiness write up of the event:

http://www.artbusiness.com/1open/070911.html

Please join us for our upcoming art and performance exhibition, Perfect Place/No Place: Re-Imagining Utopia.

@Million Fishes Arts Collective
2501 Bryant Street,
San Francisco, CA 94110
www.millionfishes.com

Opening: Saturday July 9th, 2011, 7-10 p.m.
Closing: Sunday, July 24th, 2-5 p.m.
Gallery Hours: Sun. July 10th, Sat. July 16th, Sun. July 17th, Sat. July 23rd, 2-5 p.m.

From the time of Plato’s Republic to the present, the problem of utopian vision has been its conflation with the impossible and oppressive striving for “perfection.” Yet the desire to create a better world is perennial, and as surely as utopian imagination encompasses its alter ego, dystopia, it remains a powerful interpretive force. If the speculative power of utopia has always been most vital at moments of crisis, what is its relevance to the current moment? What are the potentialities and pitfalls of utopian thinking?

Participating Artists:

Matt Cella                    UV Digital Print
Reenie Charriere         Sculptural Installation
Brett Goodroad           Drawings
Myron Michael            Spoken Word
Nancy Nowacek           Sculpture
Yulia Pinkusevich        Large-Scale Drawing
Sarah Ratchye             Drawings
Allison Rowe                Sculpture
Maja Ruznic                Mixed Media and Live Painting Performance
Ann Schnake                Sculpture
Jake Ziemann              Installation

with The Mobile Arts Platform (MAP) a collaborative project by Peter Foucault and Chris Treggiari

Curated by MicroClimate Collective

The opening event will include a live collaborative painting performance by Maja Ruznic as the Emotional Trash Collector, a spoken word performance by Myron Michael, and The Mobile Arts Platform (MAP), which will be parked in front of the gallery as an annex to the exhibition with special guests.

We hope you will be able to join us for one or several of the events!  You can check out the Facebook event for more information and to RSVP.

Glenna Cole Allee and Victoria Mara Heilweil
MicroClimate Collective
www.facebook.com/microclimate

SOMArts Cultural Center, in collaboration with the Mobile Arts Platform(MAP) presents a pop-up exhibition in conjunction with the Northern California Cherry Blossom Festivalon April 9th 2011, from 11:00 AM – 5:00 PM. This one-day-only exhibit will focus on participatory artwork and fine art installations by local Japanese–American artists as well as Bay Area artists who practice art forms rooted in the cultural traditions of Japan. Individuals and families who attend the festival can participate in the production of artwork through live origami lessons with Bay Area Rapid Folders(BARF) teacher Jeremy Shafer, hands-on perfume making instruction designed by Yosh Han, ceramics demonstrations and instruction on Japanese tea bowl creation by ceramicist Kate Stirr, and haiku practice sessions on a bank of twelve antique typewriters provided by Viracocha SF and led by Silvi Alcivar and The Poetry Storeand read them aloud using the MAP PA system.

Additionally, visitors can experience the artwork of MAP lead artists Peter Foucault, and Chris Treggiari, as well as hanging scroll etchings by Seiko Tachibana.  MAP invites people of all ages to join this participatory, multi-faceted installation, and experience art fueled by the creativity and energy of the Cherry Blossom Festival.

New work on exhibition include Yosh Han’s new Scent Piano – an interactive perfume installation where the viewer can experience a new Cherry Blossom fragrance commissioned for this event and deconstructed it into twelve components, all individually on display.  The viewer is invited to engage with them and mix and match the components, thereby creating his or her own variations on the theme and walking away with a sample of this new scent.

Additionally, origami master Jeremy Shafer, from Bay Area Rapid Folders (BARF), will be teaching participants to fold a newly designed cherry blossom flower with a stem based on a pentagonal paper base, as opposed to the conventional square paper base.  Students can then use this paper flower to dip into Yosh Han’s perfume components, creating blends of aromas in the shape of flowers, and arranging their own take-away displays. The flowers and perfumes produced will be photographed in a paper flower photo booth, and the day’s bouquet of images will be displayed in a virtual gallery at www.somarts.org/blossomafter the event.

Mobile Arts Platform: Cherry Blossom Festival is the second in a series of five pop-up exhibitions presented by SOMArts Cultural Center and MAP in 2010–11.  Each exhibition is designed to deepen arts participation at city fairs and festivals and to make art accessible to all communities. On Sunday March 9, Mobile Arts Platform will bring activities and art from the Cherry Blossom Festival to SOMArts during SOMArts ALL ACCESS, a free open house from 2:00 PM–6:00 PM at 934 Brannan Street. Future events will be announced at www.somarts.organd at mobileartsplatform.wordpress.com.

This project is supported in part by the Community Arts & Education Program of the San Francisco Arts Commission, as well as by the Creative Work Fund, a program of the Walter and Elise Haas Fund supported by generous grants from The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation and The James Irvine Foundation.

SOMArts events are all FREE and to be held in the SOMArts Cultural Center Main Gallery and at off-site locations to be determined.

Lots of props for the great costumes and a big thanks to the guys at SfZero who invited us to be part of this. Here is some info on their project Journey to the End of the Night:

The city spreads out before you. Rushing from point to point, lit by the slow strobe of fluorescent buses and dark streets. Stumbling into situations for a stranger’s signature. Fleeing unknown pursuers, breathing hard, admiring the landscape and the multitude of worlds hidden in it.

For one night, drop your relations, your work and leisure activities, and all your usual motives for movement and action, and let yourself be drawn by the attractions of the chase and the encounters you find there.

http://totheendofthenight.com/

Pics from this evening of mayhem:

For more Halloween pics please visit our facebook page

SOMArts Cultural Center, in collaboration with Mobile Arts Platform and the Potrero Hill Neighborhood House, presents MAP Potrero Hill Exhibition, a one-day special exhibit presenting local artists of the Potrero Hill neighborhood and San Francisco to be held on Saturday, October 16, from 11am to 4pm at Potrero Hill’s “Festival on the Hill.” Featured from MAP’s unique mobile gallery space on 20th Street and Kansas, the MAP Potrero Hill Exhibition will showcasevarious art mediums, including poetry, spoken word, visual arts, games and performances. MAP invites friends and neighbors to join in this one-day-only, multi-media installation and experience art fueled by the creativity and energy of the community.

MAP Potrero Hill Exhibition is first of a series of five collaborative exhibitions with SOMArts for 2010-2011, made possible with a $40,000 grant from the Creative Work Fund. This dynamic pop-up exhibition strategy is designed to increase arts participation at city fairs, and to deepen community engagement through the arts. SOMArts and the MAP will collaborate with two other street fairs and festivals later in the year and will present two exhibitions at SOMArts.

The one-day-only MAP exhibition at the Potrero Hill Festival was conceived of by SOMArts Cultural Center and lead artists Peter Foucault and Chris Treggiari of MAP.

Featured spoken word artists include Nico Crissafulli, Kathleen McClung, Lisa Gluskin Stonestreet and A.D. Winans. Accompanying the spoken word pieces of these poets will be a video anthology of spoken word groups and artists including 16 Rivers, Karen Benke and many more. Local artist J.D. Beltran will also feature a video piece on Potrero Hill and artwork for the chapbook. Featured creative groups in this exhibition include the Bay Area Video Coalition, with a video piece, and SFZero, with an interactive game.

The  Mobile Arts Platform presents artwork within community spaces and outside formal gallery walls. Throughout the day visitors are encouraged to explore the rest of the Potrero Hill Festival on 20th Street between Wisconsin and Missouri Streets. A list of vendors, activites, and festival information can be found online at http://potrerofestival.com/.

The MAP Potrero Hill Exhibition is funded by Creative Work Fund  and received additional support from Potrero Hill Neighborhood House and Potrero Hill Merchants Association.