SiteWorks

August 1, 2009 – September 19, 2009

August 1 - September 19, 2009

516 ARTS presented SiteWorks, a series of individual, site-specific projects: Anitya by Anne Cooper, Matter of Fact: Walk to Work by Bill Gilbert, The Very Rich Hours by Steve Peters and Lost and Found by Jaune Quick-to-See Smith with Neal Ambrose-Smith, organized by Kathleen Shields Contemporary Art Projects. These projects, which tooe place at several locations in the Albuquerque area, addressed relationships of urban and rural, built and natural environments, technology and land use, actual and virtual, art and non-art. Through these artists’ works and experiences of place, aspects of our community were revealed and presented in a new perspective.

Anne Cooper: Anitya
June 1 - November 31, 2009

Anitya, which means “impermanence” in Sanskrit, is installed at the City’s Los Poblanos Fields Open Space—138 acres of agricultural land which artist Anne Cooper helped preserve during 1994-97. The work is comprised of 81 bowls made from terracotta colored clay harvested from her land near Chama, New Mexico. Placed in a 9 x 9 foot grid, the raw clay bowls contain seed balls depending on the seasonal rains the seeds may sprout: wheat, rye, oats, blue gramma, side oats gramma, gallenta, little bluestem and other dryland grasses. The bowls eventually dissolve, returning to and leaving red stains in the earth. This project began in February and is ongoing. It changes over time, and will continue to be on view through the fall.

Bill Gilbert: Matter of Fact: Walk to Work
August 1 - September 19, 2009

With Matter of Fact: Walk to Work, Bill Gilbert continues his long-time interest in creating art based on the high desert environment by walking from his home in the Galisteo Basin to the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque along a path that parallels the commute to work he has made for the past 20 years. Following as straight a line as the topography and legalities allow, Matter of Fact is an exploration of place that mediates between an abstract representation of the land through maps and a direct, physical experience of walking across the planet’s surface. Gilbert’s tools are his legs, voice and backpack. His translation of the experience for viewers, installed in Second Site at 516 ARTS , uses digital technologies (a digital recorder, GPS unit and computer) to create a dialogue between the physical and virtual definitions.

Steve Peters: The Very Rich Hours
August 27 - 30 & September 4 - 7, 2009 12-6pm

The Very Rich Hours is a site-specific audio work that evokes a composite portrait of the northern New Mexico landscape as filtered through individual human perception of multiple sites. A chorus of speaking voices (including several artists involved in the LAND/ART project) share detailed observations of particular places to which they feel a personal affinity. This woven narrative, set within a continuously shifting field of environmental and electro-acoustic sound, articulates a deep affection for and devotional attention to place and presence, affirming a collective sense of connection to the land through the poetry of subjective experience. S peaking voices include poets JB Bryan, Lisa Gill and Jeffrey Lee, artists Anne Cooper and Thomas Ashcraft and many more. The Very Rich Hours is presented as an immersive sound installation in the Old San Ysidro Church in Corrales, as a radiophonic work for broadcast and streaming audio on KUNM, 89.9 FM on the program Other Voices, Other Sounds (August 30, 8:30pm) and portions of the project will be included in a sound installation in Second Site at 516 ARTS (August 1 - September 19).

Jaune Quick-To-See Smith & Neal Ambrose Smith: Lost and Found
August 1 – October 31, 2009

Jaune Quick-To-See Smith and Neal Ambrose-Smith in collaboration with Gus Wagner Farm of Corrales are creating a four-acre corn maze based on an ancient Indian maze design from the petroglyphs. Drawing on the tradition of indigenous peoples who raised corn for both people and animals, this collaboration is intended to allow the participant to reconnect with this tradition and to rediscover the interconnection among the corn, birds, environment and human inhabitants of Corrales. The journey through the maze also provides factual information about the indigenous plants and animals of Corrales. The corn maze is open to the public from August through October and will remain through the winter to become food for the migrating Sandhill cranes and local crows of Corrales, again reconnecting people and nature and what was lost to what is found.