jarett – TEMPOart

Welcoming Youth

We have had so much fun welcoming local youth educational programs to engage with our Welcome Feast project this summer. First, we hosted a community painting party to collaborate with Daniel Minter as he wrapped up production of the sculptures before installation day. Kids got a chance to learn about printmaking and see how an artist prepares for a big public project! Students from various youth art and writing camps have engaged with the project by responding to the sculptures with writing and art making. Students from the Telling Room, Oak Street Studios, Mayo Street Arts, Love Lab Studio and the Portland Museum of Art have all spent time contemplating concepts of community, what it means to be welcoming and how food and art can bring people together.

Young volunteers helping us print the sculptures before installation day.

Students at Mayo Street Arts working on art inspired by Daniel Minter’s Mother’s Garden. The students also collaborated with students from Love Lab Studio to make paper flowers as center pieces for the tables at our community dinners.

Students at Oak Street Studios making solar printed fabric to sew in to a table runner for the Welcome Feast community dinners

Students at the Telling Room writing camp responding to the sculptures.

The Portland Museum of Art’s Homer Fellows learning about public art and responding to the installation

Here is a poem written by Elizabeth Thomas, one of the Portland Museum of Art 2019 Homer Fellows:

Mother’s Garden: Daniel Minter

By Elizabeth Thomas

2019 Homer High School Fellow at the Portland Museum of Art / rising senior at Portland High School

Powerful winds dance among our silent bodies

Painted wood creates our faces

And our structure which stands

Now old in the sun

Has grown fond of her light

We turn our faces left

Perhaps searching

Perhaps our gaze is cast on something fixed

Something which brings strength

Matching the burnt umber wood which crouches under our painted tones of fire, yellow, and blue of the sky

We taste of fire and ash

Yet here we stand

Unburnt

TEMPO ’19: Welcome Feast

We are excited to announce that TEMPOart’s theme for 2019 projects will explore the relationship between public art and food diplomacy in Portland, a city with new and changing populations as well as vibrant cultures of cuisine. Through a partnership with Portland Trails and World to Table, TEMPOart will develop a platform for curated artistic collaborations with culinary culture at public sites during the summer of 2019.

It is TEMPOart’s mission to commission and install temporary and socially relevant public art in Portland, and we’re excited to see how our summer 2019 programming will push the boundaries of art, food, and culture in surprising and exciting ways. Stay tuned for details on how you can join us in this dynamic dialogue.

New Direction for 2019 Art & Programming

For over a year now, we have been working with the artist Matthew Mazzotta on his Shifting Tides project. While Matthew’s concepts are beautiful and fit our mission, the Board of Directors has recently voted to cancel the project. Even with generous and enthusiastic in-kind support from so many involved in our waterfront and building communities, the project’s costs have more than quadrupled. We cannot move forward and remain good stewards of your support.
With that decision behind us, we are already working toward a new project for the summer of 2019 that will support our mission and make the city proud. We will start engaging with artists in Maine and elsewhere for their ideas. We see an exciting path forward and can’t wait to show you what’s next.

SHIFT OF SHIFTING TIDES

Matthew Mazzotta’s SHIFTING TIDES is now planned for installation on Portland’s Back Cove basin in June of 2019 by TEMPOart.

TEMPO has had many supportive meetings with city officials over the past two months, including the Temporary Art Committee, Parks Department, Planning and Zoning, Harbormaster, Department of Environmental Protection and Army Corps of Engineers. All parties have been committed to ensuring the success of the project and, several weeks ago, it became clear that success would entail additional time for permitting and fabrication.

This is a one-of-a-kind project, so changes in the path to completion are normal and can only make it better. Plans for partnering with World to Table to host a series of community meals inside the SHIFTING TIDES “dining room” have already gained great support from other community organizations and local chefs. Between now and June 2019, we expect to find even more opportunities to take advantage of the SHIFTING TIDES’ unique platform for community connections.

Matthew Mazzotta’s lecture at Architalx, “The Architecture of Social Space,” was a great success. To hear his lecture and learn more about his engaging kinetic installations in communities throughout the world, you can watch the video which will be posted after the series ends at vimeo.com/architalx.

Stay tuned for further developments. You can sign up for emails at tempoartmaine.org/contact, and follow us on Facebook (@TemporaryPortlandArt) to get the latest details.

Your support and your involvement are essential to realizing SHIFTING TIDES and TEMPO’s projects.

Matthew Mazzotta Sold Out at Architalx

Matthew Mazzotta’s presentation “The Architecture Of Social Space” SOLD OUT in record time!

If you missed the narrow window of ticket sales, you might be interested to know that Architalx lectures are professionally recorded and edited then posted to vimeo following the event for all to see and share: https://vimeo.com/architalx

If you already have your ticket, we will see you on Thursday, April 5 at the PMA. We are a supporting sponsor of this event, so be sure to come see us at our table.

See full details on the Architalx website, here.

Occupied Wall by Christian A. Prasch

Occupied Wall asks us to break down barriers in the hope of creating community. The installation consists of a wall of modular, moveable blocks that can be transformed from a barrier into a gateway that leads to a community gathering space available for all. Join the artist, TEMPOart Portland, and the public at August’s First Friday Artwalk to participate in the transformation of the Wall!

Occupied Wall will be temporarily installed in Post Office Plaza during the month of August. The artist and TEMPOart Portland thank Bard Coffee for their additional support of this privately-funded project.

Prasch’s Occupied Wall is the third project in TEMPOart’s summer series UNDER REVIEW: The American Dream, and follows John Sundling’s Ghost Fence in the Franklin Street Arterial and Christina Bechstein’s Now We Plant: Seeds for our American Dream at the Boyd Street Urban Farm. All three projects commemorate the one-year anniversary of TEMPOart’s inaugural installation in Lincoln Park, Judith Hoffman’s The American Dream. The summer 2017 projects respond to Hoffman’s sculpture by offering ways to understand the meaning of the “American Dream” today.

The Artist
Christian A. Prasch is an artist and design professional who strives to instigate constructive interaction and community relationships through his design, and treats play and experimentation as his most important tools for developing and realizing his work. He has worked in Los Angeles with Michael Maltzan Architects, ProtoHomes, Design Hunter LA, and Kim Lewis Designs, and earned his Master’s degree from Columbia’s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation. Prasch currently works in the Engineering and Infrastructure Group at the Portland Amec Foster Wheeler office.

#OccupiedWall #TEMPOartMaine

Now We Plant: Planting Seeds for our American Dreams by Christina Bechstein

Community Potluck
First Friday Art Walk, July 7, 5-7pm
Boyd Street Urban Farm
(at Cumberland and Franklin Street arterial)

Please join us in the garden at on July 7th for the launch of this project.

There will be free seed packages and a garden potluck.
Bring a dish to share if you like.

All are invited!

Now We Plant is a collaborative art installation led by Christina Bechstein that brings together gardeners, neighbors, and friends with the Boyd Street Urban Farm and Cultivating Community. Through yard signs, widely distributed seed packages, and community interactions, Bechstein creates a vibrant and diverse exchange of recipes as well as visions of the American dream. In a project rooted in partnership and interchange, the vegetables and herbs–grown here and from the seed packets–become the basic sustenance of community engagement, reminding us of the importance of tending to both our collective environment and dreams.

The Site
Boyd Street Urban Farm, corner of Cumberland and Franklin Street arterial, Portland Maine USA. The Boyd Street Urban Farm is a community garden in downtown Portland that serves nearby Kennedy Park neighbors. In the heart of Maine’s most diverse census tract, BSUF encapsulates the potential impact of agriculture in a culturally rich, economically challenged urban area. The idea of turning city spaces in very poor health into vibrant farms that support youth programs as well as individuals/families who want to work in the soil is essential to the vision of a local, sustainable food system. For more information about the garden, please contact Laura Mailander, Cultivating Community #207.761.4769 ext 855.

‘Now We Plant’ wishes to thank
The Boyd Street Urban Farm and the gardeners, Cultivating Community and it’s Youth Growers, Laura Mailander, Zainab Imran, Maher Al Asadi, Jennifer Muller, Sandrine Chabert, Dara Lestrade, Sarah Marshall, Sister Makings Group, Charles Schreiber, Papa Mendy, Tempo Art, Alice Spencer, Andrew Eschelbacher, Anne Marie Levine, Bonnie Norlander, Laci Hoskins, Skillins Greenhouse, Johnny’s Seeds, The City of Portland and The City of Portland Public Art Committee, friends and neighbors to the garden.

The Artist
Christina Bechstein is an artist and mother who has taught in art, design, and architecture programs across the United States. Bechstein’s record of international exhibitions and lectures include Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona, Spain; Bates Art Museum in Lewiston, ME; Harvard University in Cambridge MA and more. She has studied at Cranbrook Academy of Art and Skowhegan School of Painting and has been the recipient of fellowships and awards from places like the Massachusetts Cultural Council, the New England Foundation for the Arts, The Graham Foundation and Weimar Jena Akademie. Her creative practice is interdisciplinary and collaborative in nature, encompassing and overlapping such fields as public art, sculpture, textiles, community based art and activism. In her landscape based projects, she investigates the role of art in place-making and community-building. These projects, like ‘Now We Plant’, convene diverse neighbors of all ages and backgrounds around a creative project, food, sharing and imagining to co-create the places we call home.

#NowWePlant #TEMPOartMaine

2018 Artist + 6/21 Discussion

TEMPOart is thrilled to announce that acclaimed artist Matthew Mazzotta will develop a site- and community-responsive public artwork for the Back Cove in summer 2018. In order to develop his project, the artist will be in Portland on Wednesday, June 21 to hear from YOU!

Matthew Mazzotta’s work is at the intersection of art, activism, design and urban planning. Active civic participation is crucial to his process, and his resulting works engage sculpture, architecture and the built environment. The artist’s ultimate goal is to use public art as a means to “create distinct sites for intimate, radical, and meaningful exchanges.”

For each of his projects, Mazzotta engages local community members in listening sessions he calls Outdoor Living Rooms, to share their visions for the specific communities in which they live. He then distills this feedback and develops a site-responsive project which addresses community members’ shared hopes and needs. These efforts have resulted in over a dozen community-specific public art and projects in the U.S., Europe, Asia and the Middle East. Mazzotta has received numerous awards and grants including an ArtPlace America Grant, and has been awarded a Loeb Fellowship at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design for 2017-18.

On June 21, Mazzotta will guide an Outdoor Living Room (time and place to be confirmed) for greater Portland-area residents to share and listen with the artist and with each other. Event will be outdoors, free and open to all – stay tuned for more details!

Ghost Fence by John Sundling

TEMPOart Kicks Off Summer Artist Series with
Ghost Fence by John Sundling

Ghost Fence, a temporary artwork by Portland’s John Sundling, will debut in the Franklin Street median at the corner of Congress and Franklin Streets as part of the First Friday Art Walk on June 3, 2017. It will be the first of three summer projects by Portland artists commissioned by TEMPOart Portland, the non-profit organization dedicated to energizing Portland’s public spaces through temporary art installations.

Sundling’s piece utilizes the visual language of surveying and construction, using flagging tape, simple wood poles and plastic sheeting to create a “ghost fence” that outlines the original boundaries of Lincoln Park.

In the late 1960’s, the City of Portland razed existing communities to create the Franklin Street Arterial and make the area more “functional” and “modern”. Sundling is interested in this lost physical and social space and wants to “create a simple and effective reminder of both past and present, as well as a place to envision the future.” “My goal is to create an awareness of the past and a place in the present to gather, share stories and create positive memories,” said Sundling.

Sundling’s June project will be followed on July 7th by Christina Bechstein’s Now We Plant: Seeds for our American Dream at the Boyd Street Urban Farm, and Christian Prasch’s Wall.., opening August 4th (pending City of Portland Permit) in Post Office Plaza. All three commemorate the one-year anniversary of TEMPOart’s inaugural project, Judith Hoffman’s, The American Dream, the Lincoln Park sculpture that will remain on view through the summer, and each new installation responds to that first sculpture by offering ways to understand the meaning of the “American Dream” today.

The Artist
John Sundling is an artist and designer, working in diverse disciplines including floristry, set design, sculpture, curation and custom fabrication. Recent work includes miniature sets for puppets in a feature film, and co-directing a “no-profit arts disorganization,” the Institute for American Art. His sculptural work has been primarily large-scale, often outdoors, with an emphasis on the effects of time and nature. The artist’s set design work has grown to become more environmental and sculptural in response to this exploration. Sundling is most interested in the blurry edges of his practices and how they inform each other.

TEMPOart Portland
TEMPOart energizes Portland’s public spaces through temporary art installations – engaging residents and visitors, enriching its creative community and enhancing Portland’s reputation as a world-class city. We provide opportunities for artists to experiment with new mediums, highlight current issues and engage a wide public audience. We partner with other on-profit educational and cultural institutions, using each project to inspire innovative learning opportunities for all ages. TEMPOart is a privately-funded 501-c3 non-profit organization and is administered by a Board of Directors.

#TEMPOartMaine #GhostFence

2018 Curator Announced!

TEMPOart Portland is pleased to announce Christina Lanzl as curator for its 2018 series of public art installations in the Back Cove, a one-mile tidal estuary basin on the northern side of the downtown district. TEMPOart received a strong group of applications from across New England for its 2018 season, which may feature sculptural installations, time-based/durational media and other temporary works that respond to and activate the site. Lanzl was selected because the combination of her experience, vision, network, and record of success set her apart.

Christina Lanzl is a nationally recognized public art curator with two decades of experience. She holds a PhD in art history with a concentration in public art from the University of Munich, and has overseen and curated over 100 public art and cultural planning initiatives in both the public and private sectors. Projects include Art on Hand for the Fort Point Arts Community in Boston, the South Main Mosaic Art Walk in Memphis, TN and curatorial consulting for the sculpture garden of the Knoxville Museum of Art. International endeavors include Kulturpark in Berlin, Germany, a visioning think tank and concurrent series of temporary interventions at an abandoned theme park, and public art for parks and the public realm of the new Shams district on Alreem Island of Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates.

In addition to her work as a curator, public art adviser and cultural planner, Lanzl teaches placemaking and urbanism as well as history/theory in the Department of Architecture at Wentworth Institute of Technology. She is the co-founder of the Urban Culture Institute, the founding co-chair of the Placemaking Network of the Boston Society of Architects/AIA, and a board member of CultureNOW in New York.

Lanzl says that her “deep connection to waterfront cities and the experience of Portland’s rich cultural context, architecture, history, neighborhoods and public spaces available for site-specific installations,” motivated her to apply. TEMPOart Portland looks forward to collaborating with Lanzl in the coming months on the selection of artist/s and the development of the Back Cove project.