Street art/sculpture

Revised Proposal

STREET SCULPTURE/ART

Street art is a way of expressing/presenting Artists and Designers work and Ideas
to a wider public audience. Used as a medium for communication and interaction across communities.

AIMS

The Projects aims are three fold, firstly to combine the ideas and talents of a number of RISD students from different departments and year groups in one project. Secondly to involve the younger generation, school children into the project. And thirdly to present this collaboration of work across the spectrum to the wider public community through Street art interventions.

LOCATION

There are 3 possible sites for the project

1) RISD Green / Benefit St

2) Market sq / Waterfront RISD Store

3) Downtown Providence sq – corner of Washington/Union St






WHY?

There seems to be two prominent divides here at RISD and in Providence.

The first divide is institutionally based. Student’s predominately work within their departments, they have little interaction between other departments and therefore there is a lack of interaction between students from different years and disciplines as there life evolves solely in their place of work. This could be seen to be due to little cross discipline work opportunities, the spread out nature of campus buildings and departments, and the difference between Grad and Undergrad students.

The Second divide is between the institution and the general public at large. Most of what we do as students at; what one would hope is a creative and Innovative institution, here at RISD is done behind closed doors; a “card swipe away”. The work is produced internally behind building walls, with little opportunities for the wider community at large to view or participate in. On the few opportunities where work is presented such as department shows and gallery exhibits it is not directly geared (marketed) towards public viewing with guests and viewers more friends of friends or affiliates in some way or the other with the school, rather than Jo blogs who sees a poster on the street and pops in to see what’s going on.

PROPOSAL IN DETAIL

My Intervention would involve a number of students from different RISD departments working together to create sculptures, which can be viewed and enjoyed by the wider community, as well as creating a sense of our community being a part of a wider local community.

The project plan would involve as many departments in this project intervention as possible, the idea being at least one student from Architecture/Interior, Industrial Design, Sculpture, Textile, Graphic Design, and Museum Education.

The second involvement would be school children who, depending on the concept and designs decided upon by the project team for the street art sculptures would in my mind be involved in the finishing aspects to the work such as painting designs and images on to the sculptures with completely free rain in what they want to do.
The end product a number a collection of art/sculptures with a collage of images and designs painted onto them.

- FOURTH ELEMENT & MATERIALS

When it comes to the materials used for the street installation I would like to concentrate on the use of recyclable materials, and this is where a fourth element to the project gets involved. The fourth element would involve the wider RISD community who would be involved in supplying and donating odd bits of materials furniture, whatever, to the designers who would then sift through the materials and use these to create designs and sculptures from them.

- OPERATION

The project Is large in scale and in involvement and therefore I see this as a semester project and undertaken by those involved as a Independent Study.

The costs involved would be minimal as the bulk of the materials used will be from a collection of recyclable materials. The finishing aspects such as paints would in theory be where the main expenditure of finances go, and I do not foresee these costs running over $200.

- INVOLVEMENT & PERMISSIONS

Undowtably the involvement of students from each of the key disciplines outlined above is needed but not completely crucial and can come from any discipline here at RISD, specific disciplines outlined above offer varying resources to the project. Museum education has strong links with the younger generation of providence with Grad students from the discipline involved in work with school children and children in local Hospitals, a further discipline Graphic design could offer a useful work skill in publicizing the work through posters, leaflets, internet as well as most importantly through the local media and newspapers.

In terms of the use of street space depending on the location - different officials would need to be consulted to gain approval for the project work depending on who owns the site. If it is on the Providence Green, then those needed to be consulted would be faculty members who govern and decided such installations. If placed on street space at sites 2 & 3 city officials would need to be consulted to gain permission.

OUTCOMES

The outcome is a community project, which brings both RISD departments together, while involving the wider community of providence. The hope is that by presenting what we do behind closed doors, we can start to involve and present to the local community more of what we do. And hopefully at the same time inspire the younger generation towards design and art by participating in the project as well as seeing what goes on within the school.

Examples of street installations:

The USE OF SPACE & THE PLACE OF CAMPUS


Locations:

RISD Green / Benefit St

Market sq / Waterfront RISD Store


Proposal:

Through both RISD students and the wider providence community, design and build artistic sculptures to go on display on either the street or the open sq spaces.
The Idea to show & present the creative side to what we do here at RISD for the wider community to see as well as be involved with, and to try and involve the idea of the “Street” with what goes on internally behind our building walls.

My Intervention would involve a number of students from different RISD departments working together to create work which can be viewed and enjoyed by the wider community, as well as creating a sense of our community being part of an area alongside the local community. In the interviews I conducted one aspect which became most apparent was the lack of interdisciplinary socialization which went on with students really involved in there own departments.

I would want to involve as many departments in this project intervention as possible, the idea being one or two student from each. The key departments; Interior Architecture, Industrial Design, Sculpture, Textile, Graphic Design, and Museum Education.

Why Museum education one may ask! Well in order to involve aspects of the wider community I would want to involve school kids who could be part of creating designs or patterns for these sculptures. The students in the Museum education department here at RISD are directly involved with Kids from schools as well as Kids ill in hospital who could also be involved in the project.

The graphic design students would be involved in the presentation side to the project slide show, posters, promotion really the publicity side. As we would want to get the message and the intervention project out there so that the wider community would want to visit as well as feel involved with livening up an area.

From the other Department students would be involved in the design and creation of these sculptures to be placed in the community spaces at the chosen locations on campus.

Further to this if the projects took place on public property such as benefit st and Market sq then the involvement of Providence Planning department would be needed.

The outcome of the project one would hope would be a project, which brings RISD departments together all involved in one project. It would involve and also bring the wider community of providence together by involving the younger generation of the community. It would also present what we do behind our closed doors and try bridge the gap between the Academic institution and communities beyond.

Currents in Space Practices (BWD)

Dirt Palace

INTERVIEW - 1

Name
Xander Marro


Feminist Art Collective in Providence

Founded in 2000

Location -
14 Olneyville Sq. 
Providence, RI
02909
USA

7 Members




Extract from the website: “We provide a space that promotes our personal growth as individuals, and an environment conducive to challenging thoughts and radical actions. We are continuously building and improving our facilities and structure in order to actualize our ideas. Our collective fosters the growth of strong, thoughtful, independent women who use their creative awareness of the world to change it.”

Xander was one of the founding members of Dirt palace back in 2000,

The space an Old Library Building was supported through the city with a lease to buy arrangement. The idea of Dirt Palace was to found a collective space for vulnerable female artists (A feminist collective). At the time there was little opportunities for women artists to support each other and collaborate, with the art scene in Providence at the time more male dominated and supported. There was very little culture of feminist art communities within the city. The Idea, “to make a stand” with the city at the time very supportive of the arts community.

Other the past 9 years there has been 20 people in the mix with 7 people at a time, crazy enough in Xanders words to stick with it. The average turnover being 2 years.

The space – The building an old library would to most standards be seen as being uninhabitable and to most city inspectors unsafe with old wiring and lack of heating (so its freezing), but as can be seen this adds to the charm of the space and lends to the argument that without the organizations take over and development of it the building would of fallen into complete disrepair.


The space covers 2 floors – the bottom Studio space one enters strait from the main street entrance is where the 7 artists each have a area within the large open plan room to work in. On the same floor and off from the main studio space, is where the organizations office is, a drum room, textiles fabric room and a dark room.









On the second floor is where the Old library is which is still used thou in need of a bit of a sort out. Xander says there has always been great plans and ideas by one or two members over the years to develop and reorganize the space such as a ‘radical book store’ but no ones ever got round to it. In the past the library used to be the center for ‘Books Through Bars’, which sent books to prisoners who were denied access to reading material. But as I learnt, when the main lady who had a passion for this moved so did the process, and it is now run from the local library.




The 2nd floor also houses the bedrooms with each of the 7 women having there own separate private rooms. The Kitchen which overlooks the main road and is directly above the ground floor studio space is a really great communal space and one which really represents the artistic surroundings one is in, the musty smell emphasizing the lack of heating while blending in to the whole fabric of the building. In the kitchen the cupboards are jam-packed with pots and tins of this that and the other. The old antique kitchen table is where Xander and I end up chatting over a cup of tea.




It becomes apparent that while they are a collective community in terms of the space they equally use and share they are on the other hand individually working on there own projects and outside work, and therefore it is a space which provides for individuals to develop there work and interests while in a creative environment.





Dirt palace isn’t an active community space in general terms for the wider community but does offer use of there screen printing facility’s to groups as well as allows use of the library once a month. Those from the wider community who do use the space on these occasions are often those known to the dirt palace members (friends of friends) and therefore it seems more of a close knit community rather than one completely open to just anyone. The gallery space in the main front window running along the pavement is usually used to exhibit international artists work and is not usually used to exhibit member’s work.

Asked about the feminist aspect to the organization, the response – “No diapers”

Interview with one of the members –

http://www.etsy.com/storque/reviews/the-whimsical-world-of-lavender-diamond-20/

AMP magazine also did a recent interview about Dirt Palace which Im trying to track down at the moment.

Better World by Design Conference

INTERVIEW - 2






Name
Tino Chow

Profession
Final Year RISD Student ID

What local community or communities are you part of?
Better World by Design, IDFA, What We Do, OSL,

What is the Better World By Design?
The BWD was a conference I helped to run. The conference focused on the questions, Designers, engineers and academics should be asking, How can we use technology to improve the world?

Where did you organize for the conference to take place?
The conference was a collaboration between RISD and Brown University students. Brown offered the use of the facilities for the conference to take place and with many different areas to stage different discussion groups and different talks given it seemed the perfect place to locate the conference.

What spaces did you make?
Well we wanted to have the conference located in one central area but also spread out on campus into separate spaces so that people could go to one place to here one talk and find information on one thing and another place for something completely new and different.

How was space set apart for specific use compared to its usual function?
The conference took place over two weekends, as lectures and class took place in the spaces normally in the space we were using the weekends were the best time to dually use this space at a time when academic classes would not be taking place and when students would be able to attend.

Is this a continuing project?
Yes, currently were looking to expand; tho keeping in RI based. And we are looking to make the conference an annual occurrence.

How do you apply Jacobs’ concepts in this chapter to your experience or the experience of the people you have interviewed (at RISD or outside?)?


In Jane Jacobs chapter ‘ The generators of diversity ’ Jacobs focuses on the diversity within city and the districts, which make them up. It is not an assumption that diversity is natural to big cities and in this sense is natural to institutions such as ours, RISD.
In 1791 James Boswell noted when referring to the city of London and how different it is a place it is to individual people, saw two different outlooks on city life from those involved in it. He explained these outlooks one being from the perspective of a narrow minded person who sees and views city life in terms of their particular pursuit, occupation & life. The other outlook, that of the intellectual who views the city as a place where a number of different activities and pursuits take place throughout the city all the time, and is open to the idea of pursuits outside his own individual world.
I believe at RISD it is easy for us all to fall into the first classification one where are idea of what happens around us is overlooked and instead focused on ones own life and work and therefore the opportunity to break out and interact with other people in different areas is lost, and so does the opportunity to build ties and relationships within the greater community at large.
Jacobs first important question in the chapter refers to city planning. How can cities generate enough mixture among users-enough diversity-throughout enough of their territories, to sustain their own civilization? This is a question I believe we should be looking to answer when focusing on the community that is RISD.
From the interviews I carried out it seemed this issue of diversity sprung up throughout with students feeling segregated, part of only the community, which forms their place of work. It became apparent from answers given that a central area where people could meet and socialize with different students from different disciplines was in great need to bridge this gap. It also became apparent to me that there was felt a lack of inter-discipline integration between student departments, which a few interviewees wanted so that they could interact with students from different disciplines.
Looking at the student population at risd there is a great diversity of students in particular from Asia. It seems apparent that although a real effort is made to try and integrate students from varying cultures, there is a cultural divide amongst communities here with students many students really only socializing with those who can speak there home language. Even thou this is only natural and is seen in every city and community, it works against efforts to bring communities such as ours together and therefore a greater effort maybe needed in part to bridge these gaps.
A lively city scene according to Jacobs is largely by virtue of its enormous collection of small elements in proximity to each other. From the answers to the interviews I found it was interesting how all the students ate lunch at different places to each other with all bar one listing one of the three places being home. All these places are again spread out and most did not involve campus dining. From these answers it gave me a sense that even in a city like providence there is no real
Central area or street where this vibrancy can be found from day to day and hour to hour in proximity RISD students other than Thayer St which would be seen as being too far away. Rather there is the aspect a number of different places dotted around. Each frequented by the small local community in proximity to it.

RISD Community Questionnaire

Graphic Design Department -


Architecture Department -


RISD Community Questionnaire -

Age:

22
21
24
22

Male / Female:

Male
Male
Female
Female

In a Relationship:

Yes
No
No
No

Department (Major):

Architecture (grad 1st year)
Graphic Design (junior)
Teaching + Learning in Art + Design Education (final year grad)
Dept. of Teaching + Learning in Art + Design, MA Art + Design Education; Museum Education (grad 1 more year to go)

What area do you live in Providence?

N. Main St.
Moshassuck
I live in Mosh
N. Main St.

What space here in Providence is important to you and your community (when referring to community you can answer it in terms of your close group of friends, your department or RISD students as a whole) ?

I enjoy the open spaces by the river
Being in a social, close space
The museum
The Brown-RISD Catholic Community is very important to me and the rest of the Catholic community on the collective campuses. We meet in the Chapel located in Manning Hall on Brown’s campus.

What time do you finish work on an average day of the week.?

midnight
Midnight or Two in the morning
By midnight
10pm

Where are the three main places you eat lunch in Providence?

Cable Car, Jolly Roger, downtown somewhere
Moshassuck, Portfolio, Jolly Roger
Fellinis, Café Choklad, my apartment
Portfolio Café, Au Ban Pain, Café Choklad.

How do you like to relax socialize after class at RISD, where do you go, what do you like to do?

Go out to the bar and have a few drinks, and relax
I like to hang out with friends at 15 West
I take naps to relax. And knit, because I am cool. Where do I go? Shopping. Or make dinner. I live a really exciting life.
I usually go home to relax, and up to Providence Place or Thayer Street to socialize (shopping, restaurants, movies, bars)

Are you part of any clubs societies at RISD?

No
No
No
No

Name 3 places in providence you would go or like to go to in your free time or weekends?

Movies, Grad Bar, Wild Colonial
15 West, Local Parties.
The farmer’s market at Hope High School, brunch on Thayer…

Give three positive and three negative aspects about RISD?

Positive: there is a large range of opportunities in the arts, and it is a good and well respected education.
Negative: Lack of organization

Positive: I love the studios. 15 West is great area and very nice to live in. The campus is in general pretty close to gather.
Negative: Moshassuck is to far away and does not feel like part of campus. There is no major social area in RISD to hang-out. People are not very social, everybody has there own group. I hate the eating plans here. Living in Moshassuck I have to walk half a mile to eat on campus. I am sophomore so I have to have a meal plan but I am not walking so late at night to get something to eat and I can not get my money at the end of the year. Its easier or me to eat at Moshassuck. Plus all of the stop-n-shop is very far and whole foods is way to expensive. RISD rides also suck It faster to walk home then to use the risdride system.

Positive: RISD Museum is a teaching museum, lecture series in the Teaching + Learning in Art + Design Education brings in relatively good speakers and relevant figures in the field, my thesis advisor is pretty amazing
Negative: Departments are segregated (there is little interaction) – Elective classes magically always seem to conflict with required courses – Housing is lame, as in Jorge is lame to be specific

The campus is a bit too urban for me and I sometimes feel unsafe in this area, but I also enjoy the urban area in some respects; the area is historic and beautiful. As a graduate student I would like more association and integration with the rest of the school, but at the same time this is a positive given that grads are allowed more freedom and free range of space. There is a great effort on campus proper to be “green”. I feel though that “on campus” living for grads and transfers is overlooked (Moshassuck Square); I would like to be provided with recycling facilities at least.

Do you enjoy being here in Providence/ why be specific?

Yes, I enjoy the size of the city in that you can walk wherever you need to go. I also like the proximity to other major cities like Boston and New York. I also enjoy waterfire.
The city is very small, and everything close way to early. But I heard city is better in the spring
I do at times, for the simple fact I love New England. It is close to Boston.
Yes, Providence is a beautiful small urban city, not too big or too small and has a lot to offer.

How would you sum up your experience at risd so far?

Busy
It ok
Magical. My program is frustrating because it is entirely too flexible and my required courses this semester have no relation to my degree whatsoever. I feel like I'm not really getting a lot out of it, but it's not a terrible experience.
Very enjoyable.

What aspects do you feel could benefit RISD when it comes to creating a better sense of community?, what is lacking?

A common area in which students can meet up
Being a transfer I wanted to meet people since I have not meet anybody during freshmen year. So don’t put transfer so far away form campus
There is just a lack of interaction between departments, so people are constantly with the same group of kids.
More active social gatherings/opportunities targeted at all ages, maybe more interaction with the RISD Museum.

Name three things you would like to see here at RISD to create a better social environment (be honest in your assessment and answers)?

More interaction between departments. A commons for students to interact in.
-
I think the fact that our RA’s suck is a factor for those of us who live in housing.
I think the graduate community could be paid more attention to in efforts to create a more social-scholastic environment.

Do you feel you made the right choice coming here?

Yes
Yes the education is very good here
Sometimes yes, sometimes no
Yes.

In Jane Jacobs chapter ‘ The generators of diversity ’ Jacobs focuses on the diversity within city and the districts, which make them up. It is not an assumption that diversity is natural to big cities and in this sense is natural to institutions such as ours, RISD.
In 1791 James Boswell noted when referring to the city of London and how different it is a place it is to individual people, saw two different outlooks on city life from those involved in it. He explained these outlooks one being from the perspective of a narrow minded person who sees and views city life in terms of their particular pursuit, occupation & life. The other outlook, that of the intellectual who views the city as a place where a number of different activities and pursuits take place throughout the city all the time, and is open to the idea of pursuits outside his own individual world.
I believe at RISD it is easy for us all to fall into the first classification one where are idea of what happens around us is overlooked and instead focused on ones own life and work and therefore the opportunity to break out and interact with other people in different areas is lost, and so does the opportunity to build ties and relationships within the greater community at large.
Jacobs first important question in the chapter refers to city planning. How can cities generate enough mixture among users-enough diversity-throughout enough of their territories, to sustain their own civilization? This is a question I believe we should be looking to answer when focusing on the community that is RISD.
From the interviews I carried out it seemed this issue of diversity sprung up throughout with students feeling segregated, part of only the community, which forms their place of work. It became apparent from answers given that a central area where people could meet and socialize with different students from different disciplines was in great need to bridge this gap. It also became apparent to me that there was felt a lack of inter-discipline integration between student departments, which a few interviewees wanted so that they could interact with students from different disciplines.
Looking at the student population at risd there is a great diversity of students in particular from Asia. It seems apparent that although a real effort is made to try and integrate students from varying cultures, there is a cultural divide amongst communities here with students many students really only socializing with those who can speak there home language. Even thou this is only natural and is seen in every city and community, it works against efforts to bring communities such as ours together and therefore a greater effort maybe needed in part to bridge these gaps.
A lively city scene according to Jacobs is largely by virtue of its enormous collection of small elements in proximity to each other. From the answers to the interviews I found it was interesting how all the students ate lunch at different places to each other with all bar one listing one of the three places being home. All these places are again spread out and most did not involve campus dining. From these answers it gave me a sense that even in a city like providence there is no real
Central area or street where this vibrancy can be found from day to day and hour to hour in proximity RISD students other than Thayer St which would be seen as being too far away. Rather there is the aspect a number of different places dotted around. Each frequented by the small local community in proximity to it.

THE USES OF SPACE / THE PLACE OF CAMPUS & RISD MAIL ROOM

Jane Jacobs chapter “The Use of Streets: Contact” in her book Death & Life of American Cities tackles the issue’s facing American cities and towns and how the changing social environment is depriving local communities of necessary interaction and social growth. Jacobs notes if social contacts are solely confined to the privacy of ones own home then a city becomes stultified. She points to the need for interaction through the social life of city sidewalks which help bring together people who do not know each other and how the changing and lessening use of city side walks as a way of social communication amongst the community is leading to a time where one solely communicates with people we directly know and within ones own clichés or individual community’s rather than the broader community at large.

Reading through Jane Jacobs chapter and relating her concepts to the risd community one can see where her concepts relate to how and why our community interacts with each other and where we as a community are going wrong.
Whilst Jacobs concepts are true, some of the reasons for why social interaction has changed over the past 20 years can also be been attributed to the advancement in technology and the growth of brand multiservice stores. The evolution of phone and Internet technology made communication accessible from ones bed. Big super stores are increasingly taking the place of local stores with their financial clot and hard nose pricing. Fickle customers will therefore automatically turn to what is cheaper. In the US these stores are often located on the outskirts of towns where large plots of land are cheaper to buy and where accessibility by road is easy resulting in shoppers traveling by car to purchase goods or services rather than on foot or local transport which is often in decline. Subsequently this makes it less likely for one to bump into a fellow resident or community member.


Arriving from abroad one can relate to many of the concepts put forward by Jacobs, as they are the same issue we face back in England. Focusing on the risd experience it becomes apparent that the lack of local stores and services in proximity to the already spaced out campus can be seen as one issue with the main place one could relate to being Thayer street above the main campus. The need for real leaders when it comes to the social aspects of street life can be related to RISD's need for a real student union where the elected body of students represent the community at large and actively work to bring people together socially rather than on an academic level through social gatherings and activities. Such a body which in English universities plays a huge an active part in the student community is similar to what Jacobs states helps encourage the social aspect of city sidewalks some one who brings people together.

When it comes to housing Jacobs points to the lack of trust which people have for one another and therefore people do not feel the need to communicate with ones neighbors. This could be said for students living in many of the housing complexes at risd, with no specific place in some areas of housing in which people can meet communities often become closed up with people unlikely to just knock on a neighbors door and say hello. When there is activity or a social gathering of sorts people are more likely to communicate as they are in a mutual space where both have actively chosen to go.

A further issue is placement, for risd students it becomes apparent that students see the place of work as where they pretty much live. And therefore without a central core a central place where students want to go little communities are formed within communities as Jacobs refers to when looking at the formation of clicks within communities. While the placement of risd buildings is applauded by helping to rejuvenate specific areas in particular downtown providence, it has consequently created separate community’s with people rarely spending much time in the main campus across the river as there is little need to go there.

Active engagement within the community in general is a further issue which Jacobs referrers to at the end of the chapter. Looking at our institution risd we do everything behind closed doors, with only those accepted and those who can afford the education engaging with one another rather than the average community member. This is often an issue found for many institutions how to we work with the local community so that they feel apart of us rather than a part. For RISD, actively presenting what we do best, our creativity our work so that not just are critics can see or be apart of would help break down this significant divide between those who have the building access cards and those that don’t.

Ben Stevenson