Sunday, February 28, 2010

The Personal Form of the City workshops

From March 1st to April 30th I will be Artist-in-residence at the Boston Center for the Arts. It's the first residency that they've hosted and it will serve as a pilot for the program. My work during this time, "The Personal Form of the City," will focus on the activity of mapping my personal experience in Boston and will involve my drawing a map of Boston from memory.

Everyone who lives in the city inhabits the same physical environment but no two people use it in the same way. Our use of the city informs our mental landscape and so everyone's personal city is shaped differently. It's difficult to describe what you don't know so I'm hoping to use drawing as a method to tap into my unconscious use of the world.

As a part of the project, I will be hosting three drawing/mapping workshops. These workshops are free and open to the public. Participants will map their neighborhoods, commutes and daily lives in the city and through the act of drawing will learn about the way they each experience the city. I'll be incorporating the maps from these workshops into my larger maps of the city. These will be two-hour workshops and no drawing experience is necessary. Ages 13 and up.

March 16, 2010 4-6pm
April 13, 2010 4-6pm
April 28, 2010 4-6pm

Workshops are limited to 20 participants.
Please pre-register by March 9th for the March 16th workshop,
contact Cynthia Woo at cwoo [at] bcaonline [dot] org, or 617.426.1119.

They're also posted here: Boston Center for the Arts

2 comments:

  1. I love this project; sincere and hearty congratulations Jesse. Coming out to Boston mid-week might be tough, but I'd love to add my memories of the old Boston cartographics to the mix. I would be able to provide you with a very solipsistic rendering of the Boylston St. T station from my Emerson College days.

    EITHER WAY: best of luck and I can't wait to see the progress.

    OH AND: also, of course, 4 years of the intercontinental is very exciting.

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  2. Thanks Mattlat, If there's enough interest from people who can't make the mid-week workshops then we're thinking of having a weekend one. Based purely on interest, though.

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