I was very happy to receive a warm greeting at the airport by Irina (Ira) and Slava, my two wonderful project managers/hosts in Krasnoyarsk (if a rather chilly greeting from the weather outside!). My flight got in around 5am (which is 5 pm the day before in NYC!), and then we took a cab to Ira's apartment in the center of Krasnoyarsk. After a 9 hour flight followed by a 7-hour layover the Moscow airport and then another 4.5-hour flight to Krasnoyarsk, I was very happy to be in my upstairs room in Ira's apartment drinking tea.
I was to give an introduction on public art to the group that Ira put together that same day, at the Krasnoyarsk Museum, but fortunately not until the evening, so I was able to sleep for a few hours before heading over there. I was a little nervous about giving an hour-and-a-half presentation to non-English speakers, and wasnt' sure how much they would already know about public art, particularly public art in the US and NYC, though some had participated in a CEC Artslink project in Spring '09 with Kendal Henry and Luisa Caldwell. I learned from Ira and Slava (who was there to translate for the audience), that Krasnoyarsk lacks a government sponsored percent for art program or any official kind of public art body, but that there is a growing youth culture/graffiti movement and that this type of public art would interest participants a lot. Before coming here I had discussed with Ira the idea of focusing the project on "Ideal Krasnoyarsk:" asking the group to envision a more ideal city and depict it through public art. This theme is based on a series of exhibits I curated in Brooklyn, Brooklyn Utopias, where I invited artists to respond to differing visions of an ideal Brooklyn. I had read that Krasnoyarsk is undergoing changes, such as urban redevelopment, and thought it would be interesting to apply this theme to this city in Russia. At the same time, with only a week to do the project, we had to keep the technique of working very simple, so I decided to focus on stencils and more quick, guerrilla public art forms.
To introduce the participants to this project theme and way of working, I focused my presentation on the question, "How can public art create better places?" and first showed a range of different approaches, mostly from NYC, from Christo & Jeanne-Claude's The Gates to subway projects to temporary environmental interventions by Creative Time, Public Art Fund, and Lower Manhattan Cultural Council.
Then I focused the bulk of the presentation on murals and street art that addresses community and political issues and engages local community participation. Many images came from the San Francisco Street Art book I helped edit/write. I showed some examples of my own artwork and how I have done murals that combine a simple, graphic background with individual stencils designed by participants, such as my mural for Starting Artists, inc.
I was told that the presentation was well received by the audience, and we got a lot of people to sign up for the workshop the next day. I left the museum feeling excited by the possibilities for this project and eager to learn more about the perspective of people in Krasnoyarsk.
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